I know this is something we’ve discussed before on this blog, but after (holy crap!) almost five years of blogging, there are bound to be things we’ve discussed before.
Can I stop here for a minute to point out that this blog started in 2006. Where the heck did five years go?!
Okay, back to the query.
I was talking to an author recently who told me that she had been rejected by 120 agents on query alone. Not one had requested a partial. How does that happen? Here’s how. Your query isn’t strong enough.
To be honest, even the crappiest (apparently word of the day) book should be getting requests because a good query, like a good car salesman, can sell anything. If you aren’t getting any requests on 20 queries (that means at least one request for every 20 queries you send), you need to rewrite your query. It’s not working.
If you find that you can’t rewrite it, that you’re having a difficult time writing a really amazing query, then you need to look at your book. It’s likely not working.
Jessica
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Workshop Wednesday
By repeated request we've started Workshop Wednesday. It will definitely play out through 2011, and beyond that we'll just have to see. We've received well over 200 queries at this point, but we are choosing at random, so don't be afraid to participate as per the guidelines in our original post.
For anyone wanting to comment, we ask that you comment in a polite and respectful manner, and we ask that you be as constructive as possible. If you can be useful to the brave souls who submitted their query and comment on the query, that's great. Please keep any anonymous tirades on publishing or other snarky comments to yourself. This is and should remain an open and safe forum for people to put themselves and their queries out there so that everyone can learn. I'm leaving comments open and open to anonymous posters, as I always have; don't make me feel the need to change that policy.
And for those who have never "met" Query Shark, get over there and do that. She's the originator of the query critique, the queen, if you will.
Dear Ms. Faust,
In my novel BOUND TO YOU, an emotionally reserved woman struggles to reconnect with the adoptive family that raised her after discovering a natural affinity with the biological one she’s just met.
If I have to read a sentence twice to figure out what the author is saying you need to rework the sentence. You've got a lot of information in here, but honestly, it doesn't say anything. This is a common mistake in queries, an attempt to give your book an overall theme. Besides the fact that this is an awkward sentence, it doesn't grab me. There's nothing here that makes me care about the book. There's nothing in this sentence that feels special and, frankly, I think you could just keep it simple. Bound to You is an 84,000-word women's fiction novel about a woman coming to terms with her own adoption.
At 28, Aden Crawford relegates most of her relationships to the backburner. In the ten years since she uncovered adoption papers in the attic—and was met with silence in place of answers—she’s almost convinced herself she’s better off alone. But that’s easier said than done. Especially when her adoptive parents, sister and long-time boyfriend are determined to change her mind.
For some reason her age hit me wrong. The way you described her in the opening, "an emotionally reserved woman," made me think this character was going to be a lot older. Discovering she's 28 shifts my thinking on the book. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a bad thing, I just think your description above made her sound older. It might make a difference in your character if you make her five years older; that way you clearly move out of the realm of chick lit.
It seems like there's a lot of potential in this paragraph, but no oomph. There's also the potential for a lot of conflict, but I don't see the conflict as being that big of a deal. She's moved her relationships to the back burner, and yet she clearly has a lot of people in her life. You need to take this to the next level. Frankly, this query suffers from what I think is the biggest reason queries get rejected. The book just doesn't sound that interesting. It sounds a little "eh." There's nothing special here, nothing that makes it stand out from any other book about an adult who discovers she's adopted.
They convince her that meeting her biological father, Shawn Channing, will erase any lingering questions about who she is. Aden tracks down Shawn and is baffled by his unquestioning acceptance. She bonds with her two half-brothers through hours-long phone calls, rounds of 20 Questions via email and a few cross-country visits. And she slips into the family dynamic as if she’s always been there.
If she was met with silence then why are those same parents suddenly working so hard to help her connect with her biological parents? That doesn't make sense. When I see things like this, conflicts in the query, it makes me believe that there are a lot of plot errors in the book. These might be small, but let's face it, I'm judging your book on the query, and if you don't see the conflicting information here then it's likely you aren't seeing it in 400 pages.
The ease of her new family life, however, leaves her desperate to regain that same closeness with her adoptive family. Insecurity from years of estrangement keeps her from reaching out to them. Aden must find a way to let go of the past if she hopes to wind up with everything—and everyone—she’s ever wanted.
It feels like I've totally missed the conflict in the story. This just seems like a nice tale about a woman who has two families. I'm not at all connecting with what her growth is or what she needs to overcome. She seems upset that she's adopted, but in the meantime both her families seem incredibly supportive. Frankly, it makes her sound a little whiny. Again, this all ties into this book not feeling special.
BOUND TO YOU is a completed 84,000-word women’s fiction novel. I earned my BFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina - Wilmington.
This is good. Great bio. This is all I really need.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
For anyone wanting to comment, we ask that you comment in a polite and respectful manner, and we ask that you be as constructive as possible. If you can be useful to the brave souls who submitted their query and comment on the query, that's great. Please keep any anonymous tirades on publishing or other snarky comments to yourself. This is and should remain an open and safe forum for people to put themselves and their queries out there so that everyone can learn. I'm leaving comments open and open to anonymous posters, as I always have; don't make me feel the need to change that policy.
And for those who have never "met" Query Shark, get over there and do that. She's the originator of the query critique, the queen, if you will.
Dear Ms. Faust,
In my novel BOUND TO YOU, an emotionally reserved woman struggles to reconnect with the adoptive family that raised her after discovering a natural affinity with the biological one she’s just met.
If I have to read a sentence twice to figure out what the author is saying you need to rework the sentence. You've got a lot of information in here, but honestly, it doesn't say anything. This is a common mistake in queries, an attempt to give your book an overall theme. Besides the fact that this is an awkward sentence, it doesn't grab me. There's nothing here that makes me care about the book. There's nothing in this sentence that feels special and, frankly, I think you could just keep it simple. Bound to You is an 84,000-word women's fiction novel about a woman coming to terms with her own adoption.
At 28, Aden Crawford relegates most of her relationships to the backburner. In the ten years since she uncovered adoption papers in the attic—and was met with silence in place of answers—she’s almost convinced herself she’s better off alone. But that’s easier said than done. Especially when her adoptive parents, sister and long-time boyfriend are determined to change her mind.
For some reason her age hit me wrong. The way you described her in the opening, "an emotionally reserved woman," made me think this character was going to be a lot older. Discovering she's 28 shifts my thinking on the book. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a bad thing, I just think your description above made her sound older. It might make a difference in your character if you make her five years older; that way you clearly move out of the realm of chick lit.
It seems like there's a lot of potential in this paragraph, but no oomph. There's also the potential for a lot of conflict, but I don't see the conflict as being that big of a deal. She's moved her relationships to the back burner, and yet she clearly has a lot of people in her life. You need to take this to the next level. Frankly, this query suffers from what I think is the biggest reason queries get rejected. The book just doesn't sound that interesting. It sounds a little "eh." There's nothing special here, nothing that makes it stand out from any other book about an adult who discovers she's adopted.
They convince her that meeting her biological father, Shawn Channing, will erase any lingering questions about who she is. Aden tracks down Shawn and is baffled by his unquestioning acceptance. She bonds with her two half-brothers through hours-long phone calls, rounds of 20 Questions via email and a few cross-country visits. And she slips into the family dynamic as if she’s always been there.
If she was met with silence then why are those same parents suddenly working so hard to help her connect with her biological parents? That doesn't make sense. When I see things like this, conflicts in the query, it makes me believe that there are a lot of plot errors in the book. These might be small, but let's face it, I'm judging your book on the query, and if you don't see the conflicting information here then it's likely you aren't seeing it in 400 pages.
The ease of her new family life, however, leaves her desperate to regain that same closeness with her adoptive family. Insecurity from years of estrangement keeps her from reaching out to them. Aden must find a way to let go of the past if she hopes to wind up with everything—and everyone—she’s ever wanted.
It feels like I've totally missed the conflict in the story. This just seems like a nice tale about a woman who has two families. I'm not at all connecting with what her growth is or what she needs to overcome. She seems upset that she's adopted, but in the meantime both her families seem incredibly supportive. Frankly, it makes her sound a little whiny. Again, this all ties into this book not feeling special.
BOUND TO YOU is a completed 84,000-word women’s fiction novel. I earned my BFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina - Wilmington.
This is good. Great bio. This is all I really need.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Oak-Ness Monster
Last night I went to happy hour with my old co-workers at the Lake Chalet on Lake Merritt. We were out on the dock talking, when all of a sudden bubbles started appearing in the water. Eventually what appeared to be a dragon head arose, as well as some bodily humps. We all turned and stared for it, and after a few moments, it bubbled back down under the lake.
I don't actually believe that a monster exists, as the head looked very much like a flat sheet of plywood or steel, while the body looked very much like tires. But I'm so intrigued. Who created this monster? How do they make it rise and sink? Does it move around the lake?
I tried to do some internet research, and there is very little out there, although it appears to date back until 2006. But no one has claimed it as their own. And there seem to be even older tall tales about actual monsters or mermaids in the lake.
As I said - intriguing.
My favorite part was that we told one of our coworkers who came late that we had seen a monster in the lake, and she said, completely non-skeptically, "Oh wow." Later I went home and told Matt, and he also said something to the effect of, "Huh," and started doing internet research. I really thought no one would believe me - I hardly believe myself.
Worth Reading...
Two interesting online pieces that I think are worth a read: Traditional Versus Self-publishing Conversation Between Barry Eisler and Amanda Hocking Mark Coker's (founder of Smashword) Nietzsche and the Downfall of Big Publishing
Sales Percentages
I am wondering what percentage of the works you accept to represent actually get a deal?
You know, of course, that there’s no easy answer to this question, and to really get figures I’d have to go back over 10 years of paperwork to get the numbers.
Here’s what I will tell you. There have been many, many times when the “work” I accepted to represent didn’t get a deal, but the author later did for another work.
I can’t imagine there is any agent out there with a 100% success rate when it comes to submitting projects and selling. Each project we take on is a risk, a calculated risk, but still a risk.
I take on a client for her voice, writing, and the life of her work, so even if I don’t sell that first book, I’m determined we’ll work until we sell the next one.
As my career advances my sell rates go up. That being said, I’m taking on fewer new authors now than I was 10 years ago, so I guess that makes sense.
In the end, though, I would say somewhere around 90% of the authors I offer representation to eventually get a book deal, the percentage of “works” I offer representation to that get a deal might be lower.
Jessica
You know, of course, that there’s no easy answer to this question, and to really get figures I’d have to go back over 10 years of paperwork to get the numbers.
Here’s what I will tell you. There have been many, many times when the “work” I accepted to represent didn’t get a deal, but the author later did for another work.
I can’t imagine there is any agent out there with a 100% success rate when it comes to submitting projects and selling. Each project we take on is a risk, a calculated risk, but still a risk.
I take on a client for her voice, writing, and the life of her work, so even if I don’t sell that first book, I’m determined we’ll work until we sell the next one.
As my career advances my sell rates go up. That being said, I’m taking on fewer new authors now than I was 10 years ago, so I guess that makes sense.
In the end, though, I would say somewhere around 90% of the authors I offer representation to eventually get a book deal, the percentage of “works” I offer representation to that get a deal might be lower.
Jessica
Monday, March 28, 2011
Book Packager v. Agent
Help! I feel like a bunny in a lions den! I had an idea for a non-fiction book, not being a writer and knowing absolutely nothing about the publishing industry, I searched for books on similar subjects and contacted them with my idea and asking if they would like to collaborate. One of the authors who replied was a book packager who began working with me on the proposal. We both had the same ideas on what the book should be so I thought it would be a good fit . . . until they sent me the contract. It was a work for hire agreement - no way was I going to agree to it, this was my baby and I was the one doing the work, they weren't planning on helping me write - just the packaging and finding a publisher, yet here they wanted to pay me a small fee and keep the copywrite. I began to querry agents. In the meantime they agreed verbally to most of my terms but wanted to split any advance 70/30 - net, my cut being thirty and any future royalties 50/50 - net. They wouldn't budge on this stating that their expenses were going to be high and this was normal for first time authors. Mabe I'm being stubborn but since their expenses are taken out before the split why does their split have to be so high? To make me trust them less, when they sent the new contract they stated that the split for advance AND royalties at 70/30. They have since sent a corrected contract but I just feel as if they are trying to take advantage of my inexperience and there may be something else I am missing. In the meantime, one of the agents I had contacted asked me to send my full proposal. I should be hearing back from her in a few weeks. I don't know if I can put the book packagers off for that long but there are moments when I think I'd rather not do it at all than get ripped off!
Any advise???
There’s a lot here. In other words, there’s a lot for me to comment on and a lot of different issues to address. I’m going to try to take it step by step.
You started by saying you had a book idea but you aren’t a writer, so it sounds to me like you were looking for someone to write the book for you because you thought the idea was so revolutionary. That might be the case, but the truth is that an idea is nothing without the execution, at least in the book world. I have seen some of the most amazing ideas cross my desk in both fiction and nonfiction, but without the right execution it never made it to publication.
As for the book packager. This is a typical book packager agreement and why I urge all writers to do their research before putting things out there. Without knowing what the book is or what is being done to package the book, I can’t tell you for sure if what they’re doing is fair. It sounds to me like it is. A 70/30 split and 50/50 royalties is far more than most authors receive from packagers. Do you know what they’re doing for you? Is this a heavily illustrated book and are they supplying the illustrations? You claimed earlier you are not a writer and were looking for a writer, but now you say you are the one doing all the work. I’m a little confused by this. Are you actually writing the book or is someone else? Are they doing a lot of work preparing the package and editing or are you expected to do all of that yourself?
Here’s the deal. Here’s what a book packager typically does. If what you want is to keep the majority of the money and hold on to the rights, you need a literary agent. To find one, however, you need to be prepared to write the book proposal yourself (or pay someone to write it for you) and submit it to agents for consideration. If illustrations or art are required you will need to be the one to pay for and supply those.
As for what you should do? I can’t tell you that. I don’t have enough information for one thing, but I also don’t know if you’re getting ripped off. That depends on what the packager is doing to make this a project that can be sold.
Jessica
Any advise???
There’s a lot here. In other words, there’s a lot for me to comment on and a lot of different issues to address. I’m going to try to take it step by step.
You started by saying you had a book idea but you aren’t a writer, so it sounds to me like you were looking for someone to write the book for you because you thought the idea was so revolutionary. That might be the case, but the truth is that an idea is nothing without the execution, at least in the book world. I have seen some of the most amazing ideas cross my desk in both fiction and nonfiction, but without the right execution it never made it to publication.
As for the book packager. This is a typical book packager agreement and why I urge all writers to do their research before putting things out there. Without knowing what the book is or what is being done to package the book, I can’t tell you for sure if what they’re doing is fair. It sounds to me like it is. A 70/30 split and 50/50 royalties is far more than most authors receive from packagers. Do you know what they’re doing for you? Is this a heavily illustrated book and are they supplying the illustrations? You claimed earlier you are not a writer and were looking for a writer, but now you say you are the one doing all the work. I’m a little confused by this. Are you actually writing the book or is someone else? Are they doing a lot of work preparing the package and editing or are you expected to do all of that yourself?
Here’s the deal. Here’s what a book packager typically does. If what you want is to keep the majority of the money and hold on to the rights, you need a literary agent. To find one, however, you need to be prepared to write the book proposal yourself (or pay someone to write it for you) and submit it to agents for consideration. If illustrations or art are required you will need to be the one to pay for and supply those.
As for what you should do? I can’t tell you that. I don’t have enough information for one thing, but I also don’t know if you’re getting ripped off. That depends on what the packager is doing to make this a project that can be sold.
Jessica
Robin Goes Hollywood
I was contacted this weekend by Andy Lewis the reporter for the Hollywood Reporter that covers the publishing industry. He wanted to pick my brain on sales figures for top performers and also get my insights on the changing publishing market. How cool is that ! Pulling together data for him gave me a lot of insight on things I've not really had time to wrap my head around and lots of fodder for future posts. I don't want to "scoop" him (as if I could with my small -- but all so sophisticated --reading audience) so I'll wait to see how much of what I provided him he uses and then publish th rest here. I'm very tickled that all this work I do is starting to get noticed by others. Stay tuned.
UPDATE 4/1/2011 - Okay so the article came out and he used just one small fact out of pages that I gave him - DOH! But no worries all that I laid out for him that he didn't use I'll be posting here. Just give me some time to get it organized. The article with just the briefest mention of my name is here.
UPDATE 4/1/2011 - Okay so the article came out and he used just one small fact out of pages that I gave him - DOH! But no worries all that I laid out for him that he didn't use I'll be posting here. Just give me some time to get it organized. The article with just the briefest mention of my name is here.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Running Oakland
I'm cross posting today's training log entry on this blog because I had such a unique experience today:
This was a big one - 18 miles! The longest I have ever run (again, not counting that time I ran-walked somewhere between 18 and 19 miles). I had been planning to head out to the canal paths in Walnut Creek (where I worried I would die of boredom), but then I discovered that the Oakland Marathon was in town - and it went right by our house! So after battling a fierce case of Catholic Guilt, I decided to jump in. I joined slightly before mile 5, the closest point to our house, and followed the course to mile 23.
I loved it! Oakland came out in force to support the runners. There were so many different people in so many different communities. I saw so many parts of Oakland I had never seen before - didn't even know there was a Hispanic section. There was no shortage of volunteers, and they were all super friendly. People hung out in the towns, in their front yards, at the corners. Some communities were less involved than others. In one, some young men on the street asked, "Is this for breast cancer or something?" The lady in front of me responded, "No, it's for Oakland." This made their day, I think: "Fuck yeah, for Oakland!" they repeated a few times. It was great to see the community pride.
I of course continued to feel guilty the whole run as policeman stopped traffic for me and the residents cheered me on. So to return the favor that Oakland paid me, I decided I would make a donation to one of the race charities. I figured there would only be one, but it turns out that besides TNT and DetermiNATION, there are EIGHT local charities that all had fundraising programs and came out to volunteer at the race. Talk about community support! Now I have to figure out where I want to put my money.
I also ran into the TNT cheering squad at my mile 14.5 or so, and they were fantastic as always. They gave me so much encouragement and showed me to the food table where I suddenly discovered how hungry I was and devoured a chocolate chip cookie. I'm so honored to be part of the TNT family, where they don't forget you no matter how long you've been away!
After that I plowed on through my last 3 miles and ended my run along a familiar stretch of Lake Merritt, by my old employer. 18 miles down! It certainly wasn't easy, but I made it through. And I learned that I need to eat more on these long runs to keep my stomach happy. Only one more long run (that is, more than 13 miles) until the Marathon. I realized again that perhaps I erred in choosing a marathon where there won't really be spectators and community support, but hopefully the scenery will make up for it.
Anyway, my NikePlus tracked 17.5 miles, but I trust the race, and figured I hit about 18.2 in 3 hours! Whoops - that is much faster than my training pace goal of 10'22". I blame my NikePlus which was showing me slow times since it didn't think I had run as far. Oh well. I could barely walk after I stopped running, and my right foot has developed a mysterious pain, but all in all, it could be much worse.
Thank you Oakland!
This was a big one - 18 miles! The longest I have ever run (again, not counting that time I ran-walked somewhere between 18 and 19 miles). I had been planning to head out to the canal paths in Walnut Creek (where I worried I would die of boredom), but then I discovered that the Oakland Marathon was in town - and it went right by our house! So after battling a fierce case of Catholic Guilt, I decided to jump in. I joined slightly before mile 5, the closest point to our house, and followed the course to mile 23.
I loved it! Oakland came out in force to support the runners. There were so many different people in so many different communities. I saw so many parts of Oakland I had never seen before - didn't even know there was a Hispanic section. There was no shortage of volunteers, and they were all super friendly. People hung out in the towns, in their front yards, at the corners. Some communities were less involved than others. In one, some young men on the street asked, "Is this for breast cancer or something?" The lady in front of me responded, "No, it's for Oakland." This made their day, I think: "Fuck yeah, for Oakland!" they repeated a few times. It was great to see the community pride.
I of course continued to feel guilty the whole run as policeman stopped traffic for me and the residents cheered me on. So to return the favor that Oakland paid me, I decided I would make a donation to one of the race charities. I figured there would only be one, but it turns out that besides TNT and DetermiNATION, there are EIGHT local charities that all had fundraising programs and came out to volunteer at the race. Talk about community support! Now I have to figure out where I want to put my money.
I also ran into the TNT cheering squad at my mile 14.5 or so, and they were fantastic as always. They gave me so much encouragement and showed me to the food table where I suddenly discovered how hungry I was and devoured a chocolate chip cookie. I'm so honored to be part of the TNT family, where they don't forget you no matter how long you've been away!
After that I plowed on through my last 3 miles and ended my run along a familiar stretch of Lake Merritt, by my old employer. 18 miles down! It certainly wasn't easy, but I made it through. And I learned that I need to eat more on these long runs to keep my stomach happy. Only one more long run (that is, more than 13 miles) until the Marathon. I realized again that perhaps I erred in choosing a marathon where there won't really be spectators and community support, but hopefully the scenery will make up for it.
Anyway, my NikePlus tracked 17.5 miles, but I trust the race, and figured I hit about 18.2 in 3 hours! Whoops - that is much faster than my training pace goal of 10'22". I blame my NikePlus which was showing me slow times since it didn't think I had run as far. Oh well. I could barely walk after I stopped running, and my right foot has developed a mysterious pain, but all in all, it could be much worse.
Thank you Oakland!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Amazon 100 - 3/19/2011
I'm a week behind on my Amazon 100 Ranking analysis (I captured the screen shots but had not posted the results. So I'm going to do last week's first then this week.
To see the full list see this post on kindle boards.
- 18% of the Top 100 changed (61% Debuts, 39% returning to list
- No major price changes (One book from $7.51 > $7.58, One from $9.99 > $7.99, One from $13.99 to $12.99)
- One indie price change from $0.99 - $2.99 (The List by J. A. Konrath)
- One Small Press and priced at $4.79 - (Wild Sight by Loucinda McGary)
- Quite a few price changes for games so that now all of them are $0.99
- Games occupying a substantially higher % of list - 15%
- #4 (Lincoln Lawyer) is being helped by movie
- John Locke continues to dominate 7 titles in top 50 (#3, #6, #8, #10, #21, #25, #46
- Amanda Hocking still has 7 titles but her rankings have slipped dramatically (#19, #26, #27, #61, #70, #73, #78)
- Still No indie author greater than $2.99
- 4 books are now priced $14.99
- 57% are under $5 and 43% are over $5 - Major shift (but mostly due to games
- 74% books (Fiction/NonFiction/Shorts) 26% - Games, Applications, Periodicals
- Books: 86% Fiction, 11% Non Fiction, 3% shorts)
- Number of Fiction titles down significantly
- Number of $0.99 for indies up significantly
The types of items on the Top 100 break down as follows:
- Shorts 2% (up from 1%)
- News 3% (Steady)
- Games 16% (up from SIGNIFICANTLY FROM 4%)
- Magazines 7% (down from 9%)
- Non Fiction 8% (down from 10%)
- Fiction 64% (down SIGNIFICANTLY from 73%)
Looking at just fiction titles (64 titles):
- 1 - Small Press (1.6%)
- 30 - Indie Authors (46.9%) - 22 at $0.99 (73%), 8 at $2.99 (27%)
- 33 Traditional Authors (51.5%) (0 - $0.99, 15 - $5-$9.99 (45%), 18 over $10 (55%)
Other information about indies:
- 15 - Indie Authors 4 of which have multiple titles (Steady from 15)
- 47% of Indie books came from 2 authors (14/30) John Locke (7), Amanda Hocking (7)
The price distributions are as follows (64 titles):
- 34% $1.00 or less (22) (Up from 32%)
- 13% $1.01 - $2.99 (8) (Down from 14%)
- 3% $3 - $5 (2) (Steady from 3%)
- 22% $5.01 - $10 (14) (Down from 30%)
- 28% Over $10 (18) (Up from 26%)
Dividing into three groups we see:
- Low ($2.99 or Less) 30 47% (Up from 41%)
- Med ($3.00 - $8.99) 11 17% (Down from 22%)
- High ($9.99 and up) 23 36% (Down from 37%)
- Under $5 32 50% (Up from 40%)
- Over $5 32 50% (Down from 60%)
Friday, March 25, 2011
Author Speed Date
The idea of speed dating is that you get 10 minutes to sit down with a prospective date and get to know them. In that spirit, we present Author Speed Date. A quick 10 minutes for you to get to know some of our clients. Today we'd like you to meet Christie Craig.
BookEnds Author Speed Date
About Me
About My Writing
BookEnds Author Speed Date
Name (the one you’re published under): Christie Craig/C. C. Hunter or “hey you.”
Speed date Bio (one or two lines): When Christie Craig isn’t sipping wine and telling a joke, she writes humorous romantic suspense for Grand Central and young adult paranormal romances for St. Martin’s Griffin as C. C. Hunter. (Is that longer than two lines? Sorry, I’m Southern, and long-winded. Plus, math was never my best subject.)
Web Link: www.christie-craig.com and www.cchunterbooks.com
Next Book, pub date: Born at Midnight, March 29th (C. C. Hunter) and Don’t Mess With Texas, August 23rd (Christie Craig)
Agent: What’s her name . . . Oh, yeah, Kim Lionetti. (Did I spell that right?)
About Me
Real Name or Pseudonym: Christie Craig is my real name. C. C. Hunter is a pseudonym.
Currently Reading: Unearthly by Cynthia Hand
Next on Your Reading List: Falling Under by Gwen Hayes
Facebook or Twitter (include account name): ChristieCraigFans and @Christie_Craig, plus CCHunterFans and @CCHunterBooks
Three authors living or dead you would want to have dinner with: Janet Evanovich (because people keep comparing my Christie Craig books to hers), E. B. White (he wrote my favorite children’s book, Charlotte’s Web), and Stephenie Meyer (so I could ask her why Bella chose Edward).
Jet-setter or armchair traveler: Jet-setter, love to travel. I’ve visited China, France, South America and almost all the U.S. And I’m just getting started.
Glass ½ full or ½ empty: The glass is always half full. If you want to make it as a writer, you have to keep going in spite of the hurdles, so having a positive outlook is essential to success.
Tea or Coffee: Coffee with cream, please. I’m waiting . . . where is it?
Live to write or Write to live: Both. Wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop, can’t stop.
About My Writing
When (time of day) I write: 7 a.m. – whenever. I’m bad about writing ten or more hours a day, especially when I’m on a deadline.
Writing soundtrack: None. Shh, silence, please. I can’t write with music if it has lyrics.
Character Inspirations: I steal from the world, from my own personal experiences and waitresses who wait on me. All is fair in the author’s world.
Plot Inspirations: What ifs. Anything that makes me stop and think. Imagine me, sipping coffee, looking out my office window. A garbage truck roars down my street. What if the thing that had the garbageman looking so hard into the neighbor’s garbage can was a human head? Did my neighbor kill his wife? You know, I’ve always thought he was a Colombian drug lord. But wait! (Flipping into my paranormal mode of thinking.) What if the garbageman’s not really a garbageman but a rogue vampire? And my Colombian drug lord neighbor is really a werewolf . . . Oh yeah, oh yeah, this is going to work.
Setting Inspirations: Sunsets, sunrises, the moon, the Waffle House. Put me somewhere and I’ll find something in that setting that inspires me to write about it.
Plotter (carefully plot books) or Pantser (write from the seat of my pants): Complete pantser. Even my synopses go to my editors with sentences that read, “I don’t know who the villain is right now, but it will be the least likely person the reader expects.”
Thanks for the interview, guys. Signing off, going to stand by the window and watch the garbagemen a while.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Amanda Hocking signs 2M+ deal with St. Martins
To be honest, I didn't think a big-six firm could cough up enough $'s to get Amanda to sign. After all she sold 1M books in less than 1 year making between somewhere between $350,000 and $2,093,000 Let's call it $1M to 1.5M. But it just goes to show you that its not always about the money. As no doubt she woudl make more than that if she would have self-published them.
I'm very happy for Amanda - and I think it is totally the right move for her. She stated that she wanted to spend more time writing and less time on other things - and this will help with that but I'm not sure it will just poof and go away.
EDI: One interesting quote I saw in the NYT announcment article:
I'm very happy for Amanda - and I think it is totally the right move for her. She stated that she wanted to spend more time writing and less time on other things - and this will help with that but I'm not sure it will just poof and go away.
EDI: One interesting quote I saw in the NYT announcment article:
"Publishers, weary of hearing about their disposability in an age when
writers can self-publish their work on the Internet and sell it on Amazon.com,
said they were vindicated by the news."
Advance Expectations
I am having a lot of trouble finding information on what type of advance one might expect for a fictional work that has been previously published in another country but not the United States. The work was originally published a few years ago in England by one of the big publishers. What sort of offer might be expected if it's accepted for publication by another of the big publishers in the States?
You’re having trouble finding the information because there’s no answer. How well did the book sell in England? What is its marketability in the U.S. (just because a book is successful in one country doesn’t mean it will work in another)? These are just a couple of questions that will come into play when a publisher considers whether or not to even offer on a new book, let alone how much to pay.
When it comes to how much of an advance an author can expect, whether it’s for a foreign rights sale or a first sale, there are no answers. How much a publisher offers is going to come down to your background as an author (previous sales numbers), the marketability of the book, the timing of the market, and generally how much passion people feel about the book.
Jessica
You’re having trouble finding the information because there’s no answer. How well did the book sell in England? What is its marketability in the U.S. (just because a book is successful in one country doesn’t mean it will work in another)? These are just a couple of questions that will come into play when a publisher considers whether or not to even offer on a new book, let alone how much to pay.
When it comes to how much of an advance an author can expect, whether it’s for a foreign rights sale or a first sale, there are no answers. How much a publisher offers is going to come down to your background as an author (previous sales numbers), the marketability of the book, the timing of the market, and generally how much passion people feel about the book.
Jessica
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Workshop Wednesday
By repeated request we've started Workshop Wednesday. It will definitely play out through 2011, and beyond that we'll just have to see. We've received well over 200 queries at this point, but we are choosing at random, so don't be afraid to participate as per the guidelines in our original post.
For anyone wanting to comment, we ask that you comment in a polite and respectful manner, and we ask that you be as constructive as possible. If you can be useful to the brave souls who submitted their query and comment on the query, that's great. Please keep any anonymous tirades on publishing or other snarky comments to yourself. This is and should remain an open and safe forum for people to put themselves and their queries out there so that everyone can learn. I'm leaving comments open and open to anonymous posters, as I always have; don't make me feel the need to change that policy.
And for those who have never "met" Query Shark, get over there and do that. She's the originator of the query critique, the queen, if you will.
Because your agency represents many authors whose titles I've read, I would like to be considered for your query workshop.
I think this opening is fine. You show that you've done your research on the agency, and that's good.
I have been on the receiving end of many a query when I worked for a literary journal. However, drafting a query for the specific type of genre I've chosen to write -- women's fiction/romance -- has been the most challenging and confusing aspect of seeing this m.s. through to completion. (Synopsis? Cake walk.)
I actually like the way you slip in your experience at the literary journal and connect with the agent by showing that you have a background in publishing and writing. The same holds true for the genre. This is very conversational. I would suggest you spell out "manuscript." One of the problems with email is it can easily become too casual, especially if you're also a Tweeter. It's easy for all of us to get lazy and start to shorten or abbreviate. I've been guilty of this many times. When it comes to professional correspondence, no matter how conversational, use your best grammar. Remember, we're judging your writing on this query first. I also like the parenthetical comment you made. Again, conversational, which, even though it's a professional correspondence, works nicely.
The hapless query attached has been through so many incarnations, with so much (conflicting) input from various mentors, I'm beginning to wonder if the poor thing will ever reach its zen. I keep fingers crossed that your agency can give me gentle guidance.
And here's the problem. You've attached the query. Many are going to wonder why I even bothered to include this in the query workshop when it's not actually a query. Because many times it is the query I receive and only the query I read. At least once a week I receive a query very similar to this. The author spends a great deal of time writing a nice email explaining the query and then attaches it. It states on our website that queries should be written in the body of the email, and most agents will agree. Few will open an unrequested attachment. Contrary to popular belief, this is not entirely about a fear of viruses. In fact, as far as I'm concerned it's not about viruses at all. The BookEnds policy to not open query attachments is about time management. I can easily spend an hour a day answering queries and still not be even close to caught up. Opening attachments and then going back to the email to respond adds extra time, and to be successful in life we all need to carefully manage our time. This is one way I try to streamline the query process for myself. Think of it this way: What if every response to a query you sent came as an attachment, including my response telling you the query was received?
Fond regards from Austin,
There's nothing wrong with this. The "fond regards" bugs me personally for some reason, but in the grand scheme of a query critique that doesn't matter.
Jessica
For anyone wanting to comment, we ask that you comment in a polite and respectful manner, and we ask that you be as constructive as possible. If you can be useful to the brave souls who submitted their query and comment on the query, that's great. Please keep any anonymous tirades on publishing or other snarky comments to yourself. This is and should remain an open and safe forum for people to put themselves and their queries out there so that everyone can learn. I'm leaving comments open and open to anonymous posters, as I always have; don't make me feel the need to change that policy.
And for those who have never "met" Query Shark, get over there and do that. She's the originator of the query critique, the queen, if you will.
Because your agency represents many authors whose titles I've read, I would like to be considered for your query workshop.
I think this opening is fine. You show that you've done your research on the agency, and that's good.
I have been on the receiving end of many a query when I worked for a literary journal. However, drafting a query for the specific type of genre I've chosen to write -- women's fiction/romance -- has been the most challenging and confusing aspect of seeing this m.s. through to completion. (Synopsis? Cake walk.)
I actually like the way you slip in your experience at the literary journal and connect with the agent by showing that you have a background in publishing and writing. The same holds true for the genre. This is very conversational. I would suggest you spell out "manuscript." One of the problems with email is it can easily become too casual, especially if you're also a Tweeter. It's easy for all of us to get lazy and start to shorten or abbreviate. I've been guilty of this many times. When it comes to professional correspondence, no matter how conversational, use your best grammar. Remember, we're judging your writing on this query first. I also like the parenthetical comment you made. Again, conversational, which, even though it's a professional correspondence, works nicely.
The hapless query attached has been through so many incarnations, with so much (conflicting) input from various mentors, I'm beginning to wonder if the poor thing will ever reach its zen. I keep fingers crossed that your agency can give me gentle guidance.
And here's the problem. You've attached the query. Many are going to wonder why I even bothered to include this in the query workshop when it's not actually a query. Because many times it is the query I receive and only the query I read. At least once a week I receive a query very similar to this. The author spends a great deal of time writing a nice email explaining the query and then attaches it. It states on our website that queries should be written in the body of the email, and most agents will agree. Few will open an unrequested attachment. Contrary to popular belief, this is not entirely about a fear of viruses. In fact, as far as I'm concerned it's not about viruses at all. The BookEnds policy to not open query attachments is about time management. I can easily spend an hour a day answering queries and still not be even close to caught up. Opening attachments and then going back to the email to respond adds extra time, and to be successful in life we all need to carefully manage our time. This is one way I try to streamline the query process for myself. Think of it this way: What if every response to a query you sent came as an attachment, including my response telling you the query was received?
Fond regards from Austin,
There's nothing wrong with this. The "fond regards" bugs me personally for some reason, but in the grand scheme of a query critique that doesn't matter.
Jessica
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
What does Noah Lukeman know...and why should we care?
If you don't know who Noah Lukeman is you should. He is one of the top agents in the industry and a writer whose books are the foundation of many college courses on writing including:
Speaking of being an agent...did I mention he's top notch? Here are some of the Awards for books he's represented:
- The First Five Pages
- A Dash of Style
- The Plot Thickens
- How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent
- The Art of Punctuation
Speaking of being an agent...did I mention he's top notch? Here are some of the Awards for books he's represented:
- Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Hallman (Sam: The Boy Behind the Mask)
- National Book Award Finalist Dan Chaon (Among the Missing)
- New York Times 2009 Notable book of the Year Dan Chaon (Await Your Reply)
- Edgar Award Finalist Joe Jackson (Leavenworth Train)
- Edgar Award Finalist Victor Gischler (Gun Monkeys)
- Christian Science Monitor names The Work of Wolves a Noteworthy Book
- Christian Science Monitor names You Remind me of Me a Noteworthy Book
- Detroit Free Press names John Smolens' Fire Point a Best Book of the year
- New York City Book Award Winner Subway Style
- Minnesota Book Awards Finalist Kent Meyers (The Work of Wolves)
- ALA Alex Award winner Kent Meyers (The Work of Wolves)
- Great Lakes Book Award Finalist John Smolens (Fire Point)
- Publishers Weekly names The Art of the Interview one of the Best Books of the Year
- California Book Award Gold Medal John L'Heureux (The Miracle)
- AAAS Book Award in Prose Brian Ascalon Roley (American Son)
- Detroit Free Press names The Outfit one of the 20 Best Books of the Year
- Publishers Weekly names The Miracle one of the Best Books of the Year
- B&N Discover Great New Writers Laura Denham (Have you Seen Me?)
- Great Lakes Finalist John Smolens (Cold)
- Los Angeles Times Best Books of the Year Brian Ascalon Roley (American Son)
- Pacific Rim Finalist Brian Ascalon Roley (American Son)
- Foreword Magazine Award Best Book of the Year G.K. Wuori (An American Outrage)
- New York Times Notable Book of the Year John L'Heureux (The Miracle)
- New York Times Notable Book of the Year Brian Ascalon Roley (American Son)
- New York Times Notable Book of the Year Dan Chaon (Among the Missing)
- American Book Award Winners John and Russell Rickford (Spoken Soul)
- New York Times Notable Book of the Year Kent Meyers (Light in the Crossing)
- B&N Discover Great New Writers Kent Meyers (River Warren)
- PEN/West Finalist Kent Meyers (Witness of Combines)
- Minnesota State Book Award Kent Meyers (Witness of Combines)
- PEN/Hemingway Finalist Steve Lattimore (Circumnavigation)
- New York Times Notable Book of the Year Steve Lattimore (Circumnavigation)
- NABE Award for Best Book of the Year Brenda Shoshanna (Journey Through Illness)
So this is my way of saying..."this guy knows the business" and how to pick winners. So all that is nice but why is he on my blog? Well the last two deals that he posted on Publisher's Lunch were for:
- R.J. Jagger's LAWYER TRAP
- D.B. Henson's DEED TO DEATH
What do these two books have in common other than the author likes using two initials instead of first names? They were both previously self-published. Oh...and BTW HE went to D.B. Henson she did not query him. Yes, he sought her out not the other way around. (I have no idea about R.J.) Hmm...what can we surmise from this?
Being a Nicer Person
This evening Matt and I were in downtown San Francisco waiting for a BART train. Several homeless people had walked by asking for money, and has become my custom, I said "Sorry." In my younger days I used to dig in my pocket for change, but it seems lately I either don't have cash or my wallet is buried in my purse and I am reluctant to go digging for it. Both really just terrible excuses.
Today as one of the men moved past us to the next waiting passenger, she said, "Let me see if I have any change." And proceeded to dig through her purse. While doing so, she struck up a conversation: "How long have you been homeless?" "What have you been doing in terms of looking for shelter and a job?" "That's good, you've got to keep trying. Don't give up. That's very important." And then she handed him the money she'd found and he moved on.
I immediately felt like a terrible person. Although I give limited money to charities working with the homeless or people in danger of becoming so, it's a tiny part of my income, and well less than the money I give to other causes like cancer and the environment. And then I choose not to give money to people on the streets. So heartless. I was so impressed with this woman.
Then we got on the train, and an elderly lady with a dog asked if she could sit next to this same woman, who of course agreed. She proceeded to carry on a conversation with this woman the whole ride (while her dog yapped behind them and was entertained by other passengers), then helped her get off the train at her station - heading out to tell the conductor to wait, and was walking slowly with this woman through the BART station the last we could see.
I hope this woman knows how amazing she is. I will make an effort to be kinder to both strangers on the street as well as people I know.
Today as one of the men moved past us to the next waiting passenger, she said, "Let me see if I have any change." And proceeded to dig through her purse. While doing so, she struck up a conversation: "How long have you been homeless?" "What have you been doing in terms of looking for shelter and a job?" "That's good, you've got to keep trying. Don't give up. That's very important." And then she handed him the money she'd found and he moved on.
I immediately felt like a terrible person. Although I give limited money to charities working with the homeless or people in danger of becoming so, it's a tiny part of my income, and well less than the money I give to other causes like cancer and the environment. And then I choose not to give money to people on the streets. So heartless. I was so impressed with this woman.
Then we got on the train, and an elderly lady with a dog asked if she could sit next to this same woman, who of course agreed. She proceeded to carry on a conversation with this woman the whole ride (while her dog yapped behind them and was entertained by other passengers), then helped her get off the train at her station - heading out to tell the conductor to wait, and was walking slowly with this woman through the BART station the last we could see.
I hope this woman knows how amazing she is. I will make an effort to be kinder to both strangers on the street as well as people I know.
Don't show me the money - NYT author turns down $500,000 adavance
Okay, so why does the news I've been waiting for happen right when I swamped with some unmovable deadlines? Well that's life. Unless you are living in a cave (this is all over the Interwebs) New York Times Best Selling author Barry Eisler walked away from a 2-book deal with St. Martin's Press even though they offered him a $500,000 advance.
For those who have not read the 13,000 word interview between Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler you can find it here.
So goes the first, in what I think will be many...already established traditional published authors going indie as they SHOULD. It is the best way for them to maximize their income - their legacy published works have built them a platform, now its time to take that platform out for a spin to maximize their income.
In related news...Amanda Hocking is in auction for a 4-book deal with a number of traditional publishers in a deal that is reported to be more than $1 million.
Are these two bits of news sending mixed signals? Not at all. People wonder why Amanda would take ANY deal considering she has made a reported $2M on her own. Because if she has done this well on her own...its quite possible that she can make the REAL big time - i.e. be right up there with Stephanie Meyer, J.K. Rowling, and Stephen King if she get bookstore distribution.
I think what we'll see a lot more of traditional publishing will be "one-timers" where and author signs to get some credibility and wide distribution (bookstore, libraries, schools, foreign rights) then do all their other books self-published.
Exciting times! I'm going to start making a list of those that make the jump (in either direction).
For those who have not read the 13,000 word interview between Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler you can find it here.
So goes the first, in what I think will be many...already established traditional published authors going indie as they SHOULD. It is the best way for them to maximize their income - their legacy published works have built them a platform, now its time to take that platform out for a spin to maximize their income.
In related news...Amanda Hocking is in auction for a 4-book deal with a number of traditional publishers in a deal that is reported to be more than $1 million.
Are these two bits of news sending mixed signals? Not at all. People wonder why Amanda would take ANY deal considering she has made a reported $2M on her own. Because if she has done this well on her own...its quite possible that she can make the REAL big time - i.e. be right up there with Stephanie Meyer, J.K. Rowling, and Stephen King if she get bookstore distribution.
I think what we'll see a lot more of traditional publishing will be "one-timers" where and author signs to get some credibility and wide distribution (bookstore, libraries, schools, foreign rights) then do all their other books self-published.
Exciting times! I'm going to start making a list of those that make the jump (in either direction).
Character Copyright
What is the proper use/copyright requirements if I want to allude to a copyrighted character in another work? Can I do it? Specifically, I'm looking at a single reference - as in a single line of dialog, something like "You're quite the Nancy Drew, aren't you?" (this is an example, not a quote). Am I required to get permission to use the term "Nancy Drew" from the copyright holder (I am referencing their description of the character, I suppose, but it's a term that's commonly used), or is noting the copyright holder enough?
Copyright becomes an issue if you plan to use that character in your work. If, for example, you want Nancy Drew herself to be a character in your work. To talk about a pop culture reference, whether it’s a character, a famous person, a book, a movie, etc., is not a copyright issue. Therefore your example is not a copyright issue at all, and you don’t need to reference the copyright holder or obtain permission.
Jessica
Copyright becomes an issue if you plan to use that character in your work. If, for example, you want Nancy Drew herself to be a character in your work. To talk about a pop culture reference, whether it’s a character, a famous person, a book, a movie, etc., is not a copyright issue. Therefore your example is not a copyright issue at all, and you don’t need to reference the copyright holder or obtain permission.
Jessica
Monday, March 21, 2011
Idea Testing
Is there any forum for / opportunity to share novel ideas, prior to writing them?
I have three ideas that I am playing about with, and I would love to get some industry feedback. It is possible that a similar book has been written, or the topic doesn't have a large enough platform, and I would hate to find this out after investing a year in the writing. A forum where writers could pitch their story ideas - not for representation or sale, but to get a feel for viability - would be an excellent resource for writers and agents alike. I am sure if anyone knows about the existence of something like this, it would be you.
I don’t know of any such forum, and while it’s not a bad idea, I think you’d have a difficult time getting both authors and industry pros to participate.
My guess is that authors would be hesitant to participate because an idea is just an idea, and the fear of idea theft would be huge.
My guess is that industry pros would be hesitant because an idea is great, but it’s the execution that makes all the difference. Take a look at published books, and let’s use vampires as an example. There are hundreds of romances written featuring vampires, but it’s the execution of the story that makes all the difference when it comes to grabbing readers.
Unfortunately there are no shortcuts in this business. You can use your writing group as a sounding board for your ideas, but ultimately you need to sit down and execute the book and then see if it works.
Jessica
I have three ideas that I am playing about with, and I would love to get some industry feedback. It is possible that a similar book has been written, or the topic doesn't have a large enough platform, and I would hate to find this out after investing a year in the writing. A forum where writers could pitch their story ideas - not for representation or sale, but to get a feel for viability - would be an excellent resource for writers and agents alike. I am sure if anyone knows about the existence of something like this, it would be you.
I don’t know of any such forum, and while it’s not a bad idea, I think you’d have a difficult time getting both authors and industry pros to participate.
My guess is that authors would be hesitant to participate because an idea is just an idea, and the fear of idea theft would be huge.
My guess is that industry pros would be hesitant because an idea is great, but it’s the execution that makes all the difference. Take a look at published books, and let’s use vampires as an example. There are hundreds of romances written featuring vampires, but it’s the execution of the story that makes all the difference when it comes to grabbing readers.
Unfortunately there are no shortcuts in this business. You can use your writing group as a sounding board for your ideas, but ultimately you need to sit down and execute the book and then see if it works.
Jessica
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Dear Southwest
You may have just lost a customer. I have always loved flying you, even back in the day when you had to camp out in line to get a good seat. Now I am a master of the 24 hour check-in, so that is not a problem. Although you usually have the cheapest tickets where I'm going - PHX, LAX, DEN, SAN, etc., I have also been willing to pay a little more because your Rapid Rewards program was awesome. So simple to use. Fly 16 one-way trips or 8 round-trips, get a free flight. Fabulous.
Now you have gone and screwed everything up. I had 13 credits in the old program before you switched to the new program. Since you have decided that 1 credit = 1200 points in the new system, I have to earn 3600 points to get my free flight. Already flew one round-trip to PHX, which under the old system would have gotten me 2/3 of the way there. But in the new system, this earned me a whopping 587 points, less than 1/6 of the way to my free flight. I would have to fly six round trips to earn what I could have gotten in 1.5 round trips under the old system. Ridiculous.
Apparently the new system is based not only on distance, as I believe most frequent flyer programs are, but also how much you pay for your flight. So if you get a flight deal as we did on our PHX trip, you earn few credits. If you take the last flight of the day with terrible hours so that you can get a cheaper ticket, you also earn fewer credits. This is crap. You are supposed to be the airline of the masses. Suddenly you are the airline of the elite, the person who can pay an egregious amount to fly at prime time. And you're trying to justify it all with the whole no black out dates thing. I never had an issue using my credits before. But now I will, since I'll virtually never earn any!
See you later, Southwest. It was nice knowing you.
Now you have gone and screwed everything up. I had 13 credits in the old program before you switched to the new program. Since you have decided that 1 credit = 1200 points in the new system, I have to earn 3600 points to get my free flight. Already flew one round-trip to PHX, which under the old system would have gotten me 2/3 of the way there. But in the new system, this earned me a whopping 587 points, less than 1/6 of the way to my free flight. I would have to fly six round trips to earn what I could have gotten in 1.5 round trips under the old system. Ridiculous.
Apparently the new system is based not only on distance, as I believe most frequent flyer programs are, but also how much you pay for your flight. So if you get a flight deal as we did on our PHX trip, you earn few credits. If you take the last flight of the day with terrible hours so that you can get a cheaper ticket, you also earn fewer credits. This is crap. You are supposed to be the airline of the masses. Suddenly you are the airline of the elite, the person who can pay an egregious amount to fly at prime time. And you're trying to justify it all with the whole no black out dates thing. I never had an issue using my credits before. But now I will, since I'll virtually never earn any!
See you later, Southwest. It was nice knowing you.
The Running Black Hole
So I haven't been here in awhile. I'd like to blame something. First there is my job, which prohibits me from surfing the internet all day and following twitter, thus digging up some juicy little tidbits on which to comment. Then, there's been all this moving business, with weekends spent looking for houses, packing, moving, unpacking, and arranging the house.
And also there's the running. I don't spend that much of my time running, actually, but now all my blogging efforts have been concentrated here, and that's not even up-to-date. Nevertheless, this marathon training thing has been sucking up a lot of my time. I am currently in Week 12 of my 18 week marathon training program, and I really started before that, because my half marathon training program started several weeks earlier. So basically I've been following a training program for four straight months. And I don't miss runs. I might miss cross training and strength training (and often do), but I make sure to get all my runs in one way or another. After all, I only run 3 times a week.
I selected the Big Sur Marathon to be my first, as one of my very favorite things about running happens to be beautiful scenery, and I figured Big Sur would offer it up in plenty. Then there would be the 2 mile climb up to Hurricane Point, with the tuxedoed piano player at the grand piano by the Bixby Bridge at mile 13.1 - halfway. The last half of the marathon would be slightly less hilly, slightly downhill, and ending in Carmel. I would train lots of hills to prepare for this tough race because I wanted the epic beauty.
And then the Pacific Coast Highway had to go and collapse this week, turning the marathon into an out and back course that ends north of the Bixby Bridge. So only half as much gorgeous scenery, no epic climb up to Hurricane Point, no viewing of the iconic Bixby Bridge. Totally not what I'd envisions for my first marathon. And yet, I've sunk a couple hundred dollars into it, so it would be silly to change plans now. And I'm sure it will still be better than the Avenue of the Giants Marathon, what with its two out and back courses and essentially the same view the whole time. (I actually quite enjoyed the half, but wouldn't want to double it.)
So I guess I'm a little depressed. I've sunk 12+ weeks into this thing already, and now my main event won't live up to my expectations. And the last week has been ridiculously rainy. Two of my three runs were completed in downpours for at least part of the miles. That means clothes soaked at all layers. And cold hands as it turns out - so cold I could barely eat my sport beans. While the 6 mile run was tolerable, by the end of my 13.1 mile run today, I was extremely cold and sad. That's right, I ran a half marathon - at 2:10, faster than 3 of my previous races.
So anyway, that's my life right now. I'm seriously thinking of traveling somewhere warm next weekend so I can run my 18 miles in the sun. I'm that desperate.
And also there's the running. I don't spend that much of my time running, actually, but now all my blogging efforts have been concentrated here, and that's not even up-to-date. Nevertheless, this marathon training thing has been sucking up a lot of my time. I am currently in Week 12 of my 18 week marathon training program, and I really started before that, because my half marathon training program started several weeks earlier. So basically I've been following a training program for four straight months. And I don't miss runs. I might miss cross training and strength training (and often do), but I make sure to get all my runs in one way or another. After all, I only run 3 times a week.
I selected the Big Sur Marathon to be my first, as one of my very favorite things about running happens to be beautiful scenery, and I figured Big Sur would offer it up in plenty. Then there would be the 2 mile climb up to Hurricane Point, with the tuxedoed piano player at the grand piano by the Bixby Bridge at mile 13.1 - halfway. The last half of the marathon would be slightly less hilly, slightly downhill, and ending in Carmel. I would train lots of hills to prepare for this tough race because I wanted the epic beauty.
And then the Pacific Coast Highway had to go and collapse this week, turning the marathon into an out and back course that ends north of the Bixby Bridge. So only half as much gorgeous scenery, no epic climb up to Hurricane Point, no viewing of the iconic Bixby Bridge. Totally not what I'd envisions for my first marathon. And yet, I've sunk a couple hundred dollars into it, so it would be silly to change plans now. And I'm sure it will still be better than the Avenue of the Giants Marathon, what with its two out and back courses and essentially the same view the whole time. (I actually quite enjoyed the half, but wouldn't want to double it.)
So I guess I'm a little depressed. I've sunk 12+ weeks into this thing already, and now my main event won't live up to my expectations. And the last week has been ridiculously rainy. Two of my three runs were completed in downpours for at least part of the miles. That means clothes soaked at all layers. And cold hands as it turns out - so cold I could barely eat my sport beans. While the 6 mile run was tolerable, by the end of my 13.1 mile run today, I was extremely cold and sad. That's right, I ran a half marathon - at 2:10, faster than 3 of my previous races.
So anyway, that's my life right now. I'm seriously thinking of traveling somewhere warm next weekend so I can run my 18 miles in the sun. I'm that desperate.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Compassion and Solidarity - Gregory Baum
"In these lectures I have been discussing a new movement in the churches, one that binds Christian faith to the yearning for social justice.""All who love justice, therefore, of whatever class, must support the poor in their struggle for liberation."
"Today, almsgiving is no longer enough. Love of neighbour calls for social justice, for a transformation of society, so that the victims will be delivered from their crushing burdens. In our day the love of neighbour generates a passion for justice."
"... despite it all, and in the face of it all, even though we see no immediate solution, we resist, and in this resistance we are consoled by God's presence and God's promise."
I don't normally write in books, but it is for the sake of books like this one that I keep a pen in my bedside table. The above are just a sampling of passages that I have underlined in this book.
There is a bit of a story behind my reading of this book. I picked up a copy 4 years ago (I think) because the topic is one of my passions, but then it sat on my bookcase through several moves without being read. Then I picked it up at Christmas time, deciding that it's time had come to be read, and after finishing the first chapter, I promptly left it behind at the Toronto airport when traveling to visit my family. So I re-ordered a copy, and finally had a chance to finish it this week.
This slim volume is a transcript of the Massey Lectures from 1987. The Massey Lectures were set up in 1961 in order to "invite a noted scholar to undertake study or original research in his field and present the results in a series of radio broadcasts." I have previously enjoyed listening to Stephen Lewis and Jean Vanier in their series of lectures, but this is the first time that I have read the transcripts.
I'm glad that I was reading the lectures rather than listening to them. The material was so thought provoking that I could stop and pause and think about an idea before continuing on; as well as flip back and forth and cross-reference one idea off another. Even though the book is short (106 pages) and has only 5 chapters (each of the 5 one-hour lectures), I could only read one chapter per day in order to absorb the information and reflect on it.
The ideas presented, as you may have guessed from the quotations above, have to do with social justice, liberation theology, and the faith-and-justice movement in the churches. Gregory Baum is an ex-Catholic priest (who left the priesthood over a disagreement with his order rather than a crisis of faith), so the book is presented from a Catholic viewpoint, but is very ecumenical in scope. Some of the references are a bit dated (computers as a new and emerging phenomenon in the workplace!), but so many of the themes are relevant today, maybe even more so than when the lectures were originally given.
I had so many thoughts and ideas while reading this book that if I were to try and write a full review, it would probably be as long as the book itself! I loved the fact that the overall tone was one of optimism - yes there are bad things in the world, and yes it can seem overwhelming to think about effecting change, but societal transformation is possible. And this is something that I have experienced and something that I believe strongly in. (Around the same time as I bought this book, but long before I read it, I wrote an essay - also for the CBC - along similar lines but much shorter of course. If you want to read it or hear me read it, it is still available online here.)
So an excellent book, and one that I would highly recommend to anyone interested in social justice and liberation theology.
Author Speed Date
The idea of speed dating is that you get 10 minutes to sit down with a prospective date and get to know them. In that spirit, we present Author Speed Date. A quick 10 minutes for you to get to know some of our clients. Today we'd like you to meet Lynn LaFleur.
BookEnds Author Speed Date
About Me
About My Writing
BookEnds Author Speed Date
Name (the one you’re published under): Lynn LaFleur
Speed date Bio (one or two lines): Author of over 30 erotic romance books.
Web Link: www.lynnlafleur.com
Next Book, pub date: The Birthday Gift, from Ellora’s Cave February 2011
Agent: Jessica Faust
About Me
Real Name or Pseudonym: Lynn LaFleur
Currently Reading: RWA RITA contest entries
Next on Your Reading List: Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Facebook or Twitter (include account name):
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lynn.lafleur
Twitter: www.twitter.com/lynn_lafleur
Three authors living or dead you would want to have dinner with: Sandra Brown, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Jill Shalvis
Jet-setter or armchair traveler: Armchair traveler
Glass ½ full or ½ empty: Always ½ full
Tea or Coffee: Tea
Live to write or Write to live: Live to write
About My Writing
When (time of day) I write: Morning to late afternoon.
Writing soundtrack: New Age instrumentals.
Character Inspirations: They all come out of my head.
Plot Inspirations: Most of those come out of my head too, but sometimes a simple phrase I hear someone say will spark an idea.
Setting Inspirations: I usually set my books in either Texas or Washington, as I’ve lived in both states.
Plotter (carefully plot books) or Pantser (write from the seat of my pants): Big-time pantser!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
From Self-Pubbed to Contract
After finishing my novel I sent it out into the slush piles. I got 5 requests, 2 of them for the full. All of them decided to pass in the end, despite them saying that they liked it, thought it was well written, and that it was very original. None of them really gave me a reason for passing. After playing out the attempt to get an agent, I decided to make my novel available through print-on-demand service since all of my family and friends were begging to read it. I’ve gotten great reviews on it, not just from people I know, most of them people I have never met. I’ve had half a dozen book review bloggers contact me about reviewing a copy and have gotten amazing support and reviews. I’ve made a decent establishment of myself online, if you search my name I pop up everywhere.
I am realistic about the potential of success using a POD service though. The chances of getting this off the ground are slim to none. Feeling a little more confident that people will actually and do actually like my work, I would like to send it back out to agents. My concern is, however, that an agent will be more hesitant to look at me because I have done the POD service. Many agents seem to see this option as the “kiss of death.” I recently sent a submission to a medium-sized publishing house who said they liked it but since it had been “published in any form” they would not be interested.
So I wonder- is it going to help me at all, even though I’ve gotten such amazing feedback and have started to make a name for myself? Have I done myself a great disservice by making it available already?
It will definitely help you that you’ve received good reviews and feedback. It will help you even more if your sales have been exceptional, because when it comes right down to it, publishers are only really interested in sales numbers.
I don’t think you’ve done yourself a disservice by making this book available, I think you’re doing yourself a disservice by not moving on from this book. The smartest thing you can do at this point is move on to your next book and start submitting that to agents. The feedback you’ve received on your first book might help present your book but, more important, your next book is bound to be stronger.
Jessica
I am realistic about the potential of success using a POD service though. The chances of getting this off the ground are slim to none. Feeling a little more confident that people will actually and do actually like my work, I would like to send it back out to agents. My concern is, however, that an agent will be more hesitant to look at me because I have done the POD service. Many agents seem to see this option as the “kiss of death.” I recently sent a submission to a medium-sized publishing house who said they liked it but since it had been “published in any form” they would not be interested.
So I wonder- is it going to help me at all, even though I’ve gotten such amazing feedback and have started to make a name for myself? Have I done myself a great disservice by making it available already?
It will definitely help you that you’ve received good reviews and feedback. It will help you even more if your sales have been exceptional, because when it comes right down to it, publishers are only really interested in sales numbers.
I don’t think you’ve done yourself a disservice by making this book available, I think you’re doing yourself a disservice by not moving on from this book. The smartest thing you can do at this point is move on to your next book and start submitting that to agents. The feedback you’ve received on your first book might help present your book but, more important, your next book is bound to be stronger.
Jessica
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Workshop Wednesday
By repeated request we've started Workshop Wednesday. It will definitely play out through 2011, and beyond that we'll just have to see. We've received well over 200 queries at this point, but we are choosing at random, so don't be afraid to participate as per the guidelines in our original post.
For anyone wanting to comment, we ask that you comment in a polite and respectful manner, and we ask that you be as constructive as possible. If you can be useful to the brave souls who submitted their query and comment on the query, that's great. Please keep any anonymous tirades on publishing or other snarky comments to yourself. This is and should remain an open and safe forum for people to put themselves and their queries out there so that everyone can learn. I'm leaving comments open and open to anonymous posters, as I always have; don't make me feel the need to change that policy.
And for those who have never "met" Query Shark, get over there and do that. She's the originator of the query critique, the queen, if you will.
Dear Bookends,
Always address your query to a specific agent, not just the agency’s name. Queries that aren’t aimed at a specific agent will most likely be read by an intern first, or will be passed over quickly because the agent will perceive you as someone who didn’t do their homework. And, at any rate, it should be spelled “BookEnds.”
I am writing you in regards to my first novel. I am a 23 year old aspiring author. I currently work as a stonemason.
Honestly, I wouldn’t divulge any of this information to an agent or editor. Don’t tell me it’s your first novel. That makes the agent immediately think that you’re sending the first writing project to ever come out of your printer — whether that’s the case or not. Writing generally gets better with practice, just like anything else. Perhaps you’re the exception and have penned a classic the first time you sat down to write. It doesn’t matter, because agents and editors have preconceived notions. And you don’t need to give up that information anyway.
I also don’t need to know your age and occupation. When you’re coming to me with a book project, you’re a writer first. Unless your occupation plays into the credibility of the story you’ve written, it’s not relevant to the letter. Especially in fiction. If your protagonist was a stonemason and that played heavily into the story, then it would be worth mentioning.
Ben awakes from deep freeze, but not in the utopia he'd been promised; in fact it's quite the opposite. He's been shipwrecked on some undiscovered backwater planet. He thought his prospects were bad on earth. His job had been taken over by droid workers, the girl he loved left him and his last living family member just died. Now, however, this may be worse. There is no food, no shelter and his only companion is a shirtless old man who constantly rummages through the landscape for edible plants. Ben decides to preserve his own sanity by finding other survivors.
This setup is a little wordy, but intriguing. I think it would capture the reader’s interest even more, however, if I understood what world and what circumstances Ben was coming from. What caused the deep freeze? And why did he think he’d wake up in utopia?
Ben and Leon rescue others from starvation and begin to establish a small society. One day they discover a crashed military vessel. Could it be a rescue crew? The only passenger is an unconscious young man. When he wakes he is barely coherent, but in a rage tries to kill Ben, claiming Ben murdered his father. Ben left earth before this kid was even born and he certainly never murdered anyone. It's assumed the young man is just some escaped lunatic - until they find Ben's mug shot tattooed on the young man's chest.
A flashback to earth presents the alternate reality that climaxes in a life and death scenario - not only for Ben, but for all of mankind as well.
Okay. Now the plot is starting to sound a bit convoluted, and I believe that’s largely due to the fact that I don’t have a frame of reference for this story. Is Earth still in existence? If so, why did Ben leave? If Ben left Earth before this young man was born, does that mean he’s been on this other planet for 20 years or more before the man shows up? If not, where was he in the interim?
Also, with that setup paragraph it really seemed like this book was going to be about starting a new society on this planet. Instead it sounds like the focus of the book is this mystery that actually took place on Earth. If that’s the case you need to focus much less on Leon and this survival story and more on the context of this world and the arrival of the young man and the mystery he carries with him.
START ANEW is a 45,000 word science fiction. It is my debut novel and the first in a potential series.
45,000 words is very short. Adult science fiction with a scope as large as the one you’ve described should be about twice as long. You should probably research the market a bit more and get a better grasp of what’s out there.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Kim
For anyone wanting to comment, we ask that you comment in a polite and respectful manner, and we ask that you be as constructive as possible. If you can be useful to the brave souls who submitted their query and comment on the query, that's great. Please keep any anonymous tirades on publishing or other snarky comments to yourself. This is and should remain an open and safe forum for people to put themselves and their queries out there so that everyone can learn. I'm leaving comments open and open to anonymous posters, as I always have; don't make me feel the need to change that policy.
And for those who have never "met" Query Shark, get over there and do that. She's the originator of the query critique, the queen, if you will.
Dear Bookends,
Always address your query to a specific agent, not just the agency’s name. Queries that aren’t aimed at a specific agent will most likely be read by an intern first, or will be passed over quickly because the agent will perceive you as someone who didn’t do their homework. And, at any rate, it should be spelled “BookEnds.”
I am writing you in regards to my first novel. I am a 23 year old aspiring author. I currently work as a stonemason.
Honestly, I wouldn’t divulge any of this information to an agent or editor. Don’t tell me it’s your first novel. That makes the agent immediately think that you’re sending the first writing project to ever come out of your printer — whether that’s the case or not. Writing generally gets better with practice, just like anything else. Perhaps you’re the exception and have penned a classic the first time you sat down to write. It doesn’t matter, because agents and editors have preconceived notions. And you don’t need to give up that information anyway.
I also don’t need to know your age and occupation. When you’re coming to me with a book project, you’re a writer first. Unless your occupation plays into the credibility of the story you’ve written, it’s not relevant to the letter. Especially in fiction. If your protagonist was a stonemason and that played heavily into the story, then it would be worth mentioning.
Ben awakes from deep freeze, but not in the utopia he'd been promised; in fact it's quite the opposite. He's been shipwrecked on some undiscovered backwater planet. He thought his prospects were bad on earth. His job had been taken over by droid workers, the girl he loved left him and his last living family member just died. Now, however, this may be worse. There is no food, no shelter and his only companion is a shirtless old man who constantly rummages through the landscape for edible plants. Ben decides to preserve his own sanity by finding other survivors.
This setup is a little wordy, but intriguing. I think it would capture the reader’s interest even more, however, if I understood what world and what circumstances Ben was coming from. What caused the deep freeze? And why did he think he’d wake up in utopia?
Ben and Leon rescue others from starvation and begin to establish a small society. One day they discover a crashed military vessel. Could it be a rescue crew? The only passenger is an unconscious young man. When he wakes he is barely coherent, but in a rage tries to kill Ben, claiming Ben murdered his father. Ben left earth before this kid was even born and he certainly never murdered anyone. It's assumed the young man is just some escaped lunatic - until they find Ben's mug shot tattooed on the young man's chest.
A flashback to earth presents the alternate reality that climaxes in a life and death scenario - not only for Ben, but for all of mankind as well.
Okay. Now the plot is starting to sound a bit convoluted, and I believe that’s largely due to the fact that I don’t have a frame of reference for this story. Is Earth still in existence? If so, why did Ben leave? If Ben left Earth before this young man was born, does that mean he’s been on this other planet for 20 years or more before the man shows up? If not, where was he in the interim?
Also, with that setup paragraph it really seemed like this book was going to be about starting a new society on this planet. Instead it sounds like the focus of the book is this mystery that actually took place on Earth. If that’s the case you need to focus much less on Leon and this survival story and more on the context of this world and the arrival of the young man and the mystery he carries with him.
START ANEW is a 45,000 word science fiction. It is my debut novel and the first in a potential series.
45,000 words is very short. Adult science fiction with a scope as large as the one you’ve described should be about twice as long. You should probably research the market a bit more and get a better grasp of what’s out there.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Kim
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Making the best of both worlds - Julianne MacLean
Hot on the heals of my post about the best of both worlds comes an interview with Julianne MacLean whose publishing journey includes both traditional historical romance releases and a newly released self-published work: The Color of Heaven. I think Julianne is maximizing today’s tumultuous publishing environment by utilizing both paths to publishing.
Robin: For those who don’t know, let’s give some background on you. From my research I see you have traditionally published through three different major presses, are a USA Today Bestseller, and have won multiple awards. Tell us a bit about your career…where it started and where you are now.
Julianne: I’ve written 16 romance novels. I started at Harlequin Historicals in 2000, moved to Avon in 2003, and I’m now at St. Martin’s Press with a Scottish Highlander trilogy out this year.
I’ve been working on The Color of Heaven for 6 years. It took that long because I could only work on it during short periods of time while I was between contracts for my historicals. My agent shopped it around 3 years ago when it was half-finished, but no one was interested for a number of different reaso
ns.
I always believed in the story, however, so I reworked it and finished it last summer. When I showed the revised version to my agent, she believed that in today’s tough publishing climate, the result would be the same. Thankfully, there was a viable alternative available to me. I could self-publish it. I was very excited by the idea.
I want to make something very clear, however. Though I am about to talk about numbers and business strategy, it needs to be said that this book is not a “product.” NOT TO ME. This is the book of my heart, and when I wrote it, it was a true labor of love in every possible way. The story means a lot to me. I did not set out to write something “marketable.”
Robin: To give us some perspective would you mind comparing your print sales to your indie ebook sales?
Julianne: The Color of Heaven has been averaging 1000 books per day on Amazon since Feb. 19. I uploaded it the end of January, and the first three weeks were slow. I sold only 31 copies. Then it took off exponentially at the end of week three (I will explain more about that later.)
As of today, I’ve sold 25K copies of that one title in the past 4 weeks, most at $2.99 with a 70% royalty, so you can do the math. Those are all e-book copies, but I have a print edition in the works, so it will be interesting to see how well that one does. I’m hoping to have it available by the end of the month. (It will be a POD trade paperback edition published by CreateSpace.)
I don’t have sales numbers yet for Barnes &Noble, as it only appeared on that site 2 weeks ago through Smashwords and hasn’t caught on yet. The ranking is very low as of the date of this blog, but it’s slowly rising. I will be watching it over the coming weeks.
In addition, my agency will soon be approaching foreign markets to sell print rights in other countries, and film rights as well.
To compare with earnings on my previous print books – I’m not going to share my advances, but I will share this hypothetical situation, which is pretty common: Let’s say an author gets a three-book deal with a sixty-thousand dollar advance (which isn’t bad for a mid-lister in this market). He/she will receive the money over the life of the contract as the completed manuscripts are delivered. Sometimes the final amount is paid on publication, which can hold your money up even longer. Most books don’t earn much beyond the advance, so the sixty-thousand-dollar-advance author is not making a killing if he/she is delivering a book every 9 months and waiting for the last book to be released. It could work out to only $20k per year, unless there are some foreign sales and backlist royalties to add to that.
I just earned that in less than two weeks.
Robin: I noticed that you started with $0.99 and then raised to $2.99 which I personally think is a brilliant strategy. You are still in the top 100 but you have slipped in overall ranking – can you tell us if you are making more or less at that $2.99 price point?
Julianne: Here was my strategy: I started at $2.99 (and sold 31 copies). For that first week, however, I also offered it for free at Smashwords to my long-time readers who were signed up for my website newsletter. I told them to share the coupon code with their friends, and I promoted the free coupon on Facebook and Twitter.
I gave away 500 copies on Smashwords and considered them to be ARCs (advance reading copies). This is how the big publishers do it, so I went about it the same way. (If you’re an author, read The Anatomy of Buzz)
In the weeks that followed, reviews started popping up in a lot of places, so I believe it was very worthwhile. It created some invaluable word-of-mouth.
As soon as the coupon expired, I lowered the price to $0.99 over on Amazon – again for one week only - and I promoted that “special offer” on Facebook and Twitter and did a few guest blogs where I mentioned it.
The turning point came when that sale price was mentioned on Daily Cheap Reads. I went from a 10,000 ranking to #55 by supper time that day. (I think having the positive reviews already in place helped to drive those sales, and the attractive cover art was key.)
The book continued to climb to #27 over the next week, and that’s when I raised the price back to $2.99 (though I was uneasy about this at the time and had some concern that it would fall off the list completely and lose momentum).
I was pleased to see that it didn’t slow things down much at all. The difference was barely noticeable in the ranking, but the royalty dollar figure soared at 70%. The ranking dipped to the low thirties for a short while, then climbed up again and peaked at #13 last weekend. It has since dropped to #54, but even so, I still made $11,000 last week.
So to answer your question – I am making more at the $2.99 price than I did at $0.99. And I still believe that $2.99 is an excellent price for a book. Reviewers have even commented on it and asked, “Why is this book so cheap?”
(Personally, I think a good book with a proven track record through positive reviews or a publisher’s stamp of approval is worth more than $0.99, and readers are willing to pay for good fiction. Using it as a promo price is one thing, but I don’t want to see this become the standard.)
But back to strategy. I just booked two promotions - one on Kindle Nation in April, and a five-day e-newsletter of excerpts from Eye on Romance, which will go out to 17K subscribers the week of March 21. I will be watching the numbers carefully to see if these promotions have any effect. Aside from my E.V. Mitchell website, these are the first promotions I am paying for. Kindle Nation is $139 and Eye on Romance had a sale price of $150 last week.
Robin: One of the things that is really bothering me about traditional publishing at the moment is the 25%/75% e-book split. I personally think this is the #1 thing that publishers have to change to attract and retain top talent. Does the success of Color of Heaven and/or the royalty share arrangement affect your thinking on future projects and whether you’ll stay traditional or shift to self-publishing?
Julianne: Absolutely. I will think very carefully about the next contract I sign.
Robin: If you were a new writer starting today, what would be your strategy to publishing – would you still go the traditional route, try your hand at self-publishing, or some form of hybrid approach?
Julianne: That’s a difficult question, because it depends on the drive, tenacity, talent, and experience level of the author (both in marketing and writing). It also depends on the author’s own personal priorities.
So let’s talk about tenacity, because that’s a key factor, whether you decide to self-publish or go the traditional route. It took me 6 years to sell my first book to Harlequin, and during that time, I wrote 5 novels, submitted to agents and publishers and got rejected left, right, and center. I did not give up, however. I was honing my craft the entire time, and to be honest, I’m glad I got rejected.
I keep hearing that the publishers, as gatekeepers, are rejecting a lot of good work. That’s true. Sometimes they make mistakes, but let’s be honest with ourselves. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes a writer still has some growing to do.
I can’t imagine what would have happened if I’d self-published my first novel, because it simply wasn’t very good. So my advice to authors is to keep writing, develop your voice, get feedback through critiques. Learn how to revise and improve your work. It has to be good, no matter which route you take. And if you self-publish, please… do so with a professional-looking cover.
Robin: If you would have to give a new author one piece of advice (beyond “write a good book” which is a given), what would that be?
Julianne: Decide whether or not you’re willing to be in this for the long haul, and if the answer is yes, then keep writing and learning, and don’t give up. Don’t get discouraged if your first indie book isn’t a bestseller, or if your first submission gets rejected. Keep revising and writing new books. Most writers love to write, so consider it time well spent, no matter how long it takes.
Robin: Anything else you would like to share?
Julianne: The publishing industry is in flux right now, and it’s an exciting time for both authors and readers. I can’t wait to see where we are five years from now. I hope it’s a good place for everyone.
Again I thank you today for your time. I love the writing community and that those who have “made it” are willing to share with those new to the trenches. I’ll be watching your career and hope to see many successes in the future.
Robin: For those who don’t know, let’s give some background on you. From my research I see you have traditionally published through three different major presses, are a USA Today Bestseller, and have won multiple awards. Tell us a bit about your career…where it started and where you are now.
Julianne: I’ve written 16 romance novels. I started at Harlequin Historicals in 2000, moved to Avon in 2003, and I’m now at St. Martin’s Press with a Scottish Highlander trilogy out this year.
I’ve been working on The Color of Heaven for 6 years. It took that long because I could only work on it during short periods of time while I was between contracts for my historicals. My agent shopped it around 3 years ago when it was half-finished, but no one was interested for a number of different reaso
ns.I always believed in the story, however, so I reworked it and finished it last summer. When I showed the revised version to my agent, she believed that in today’s tough publishing climate, the result would be the same. Thankfully, there was a viable alternative available to me. I could self-publish it. I was very excited by the idea.
I want to make something very clear, however. Though I am about to talk about numbers and business strategy, it needs to be said that this book is not a “product.” NOT TO ME. This is the book of my heart, and when I wrote it, it was a true labor of love in every possible way. The story means a lot to me. I did not set out to write something “marketable.”
Robin: To give us some perspective would you mind comparing your print sales to your indie ebook sales?
Julianne: The Color of Heaven has been averaging 1000 books per day on Amazon since Feb. 19. I uploaded it the end of January, and the first three weeks were slow. I sold only 31 copies. Then it took off exponentially at the end of week three (I will explain more about that later.)
As of today, I’ve sold 25K copies of that one title in the past 4 weeks, most at $2.99 with a 70% royalty, so you can do the math. Those are all e-book copies, but I have a print edition in the works, so it will be interesting to see how well that one does. I’m hoping to have it available by the end of the month. (It will be a POD trade paperback edition published by CreateSpace.)
I don’t have sales numbers yet for Barnes &Noble, as it only appeared on that site 2 weeks ago through Smashwords and hasn’t caught on yet. The ranking is very low as of the date of this blog, but it’s slowly rising. I will be watching it over the coming weeks.
In addition, my agency will soon be approaching foreign markets to sell print rights in other countries, and film rights as well.
To compare with earnings on my previous print books – I’m not going to share my advances, but I will share this hypothetical situation, which is pretty common: Let’s say an author gets a three-book deal with a sixty-thousand dollar advance (which isn’t bad for a mid-lister in this market). He/she will receive the money over the life of the contract as the completed manuscripts are delivered. Sometimes the final amount is paid on publication, which can hold your money up even longer. Most books don’t earn much beyond the advance, so the sixty-thousand-dollar-advance author is not making a killing if he/she is delivering a book every 9 months and waiting for the last book to be released. It could work out to only $20k per year, unless there are some foreign sales and backlist royalties to add to that.
I just earned that in less than two weeks.
Robin: I noticed that you started with $0.99 and then raised to $2.99 which I personally think is a brilliant strategy. You are still in the top 100 but you have slipped in overall ranking – can you tell us if you are making more or less at that $2.99 price point?
Julianne: Here was my strategy: I started at $2.99 (and sold 31 copies). For that first week, however, I also offered it for free at Smashwords to my long-time readers who were signed up for my website newsletter. I told them to share the coupon code with their friends, and I promoted the free coupon on Facebook and Twitter.
I gave away 500 copies on Smashwords and considered them to be ARCs (advance reading copies). This is how the big publishers do it, so I went about it the same way. (If you’re an author, read The Anatomy of Buzz)
In the weeks that followed, reviews started popping up in a lot of places, so I believe it was very worthwhile. It created some invaluable word-of-mouth.
As soon as the coupon expired, I lowered the price to $0.99 over on Amazon – again for one week only - and I promoted that “special offer” on Facebook and Twitter and did a few guest blogs where I mentioned it.
The turning point came when that sale price was mentioned on Daily Cheap Reads. I went from a 10,000 ranking to #55 by supper time that day. (I think having the positive reviews already in place helped to drive those sales, and the attractive cover art was key.)
The book continued to climb to #27 over the next week, and that’s when I raised the price back to $2.99 (though I was uneasy about this at the time and had some concern that it would fall off the list completely and lose momentum).
I was pleased to see that it didn’t slow things down much at all. The difference was barely noticeable in the ranking, but the royalty dollar figure soared at 70%. The ranking dipped to the low thirties for a short while, then climbed up again and peaked at #13 last weekend. It has since dropped to #54, but even so, I still made $11,000 last week.
So to answer your question – I am making more at the $2.99 price than I did at $0.99. And I still believe that $2.99 is an excellent price for a book. Reviewers have even commented on it and asked, “Why is this book so cheap?”
(Personally, I think a good book with a proven track record through positive reviews or a publisher’s stamp of approval is worth more than $0.99, and readers are willing to pay for good fiction. Using it as a promo price is one thing, but I don’t want to see this become the standard.)
But back to strategy. I just booked two promotions - one on Kindle Nation in April, and a five-day e-newsletter of excerpts from Eye on Romance, which will go out to 17K subscribers the week of March 21. I will be watching the numbers carefully to see if these promotions have any effect. Aside from my E.V. Mitchell website, these are the first promotions I am paying for. Kindle Nation is $139 and Eye on Romance had a sale price of $150 last week.
Robin: One of the things that is really bothering me about traditional publishing at the moment is the 25%/75% e-book split. I personally think this is the #1 thing that publishers have to change to attract and retain top talent. Does the success of Color of Heaven and/or the royalty share arrangement affect your thinking on future projects and whether you’ll stay traditional or shift to self-publishing?
Julianne: Absolutely. I will think very carefully about the next contract I sign.
Robin: If you were a new writer starting today, what would be your strategy to publishing – would you still go the traditional route, try your hand at self-publishing, or some form of hybrid approach?
Julianne: That’s a difficult question, because it depends on the drive, tenacity, talent, and experience level of the author (both in marketing and writing). It also depends on the author’s own personal priorities.
So let’s talk about tenacity, because that’s a key factor, whether you decide to self-publish or go the traditional route. It took me 6 years to sell my first book to Harlequin, and during that time, I wrote 5 novels, submitted to agents and publishers and got rejected left, right, and center. I did not give up, however. I was honing my craft the entire time, and to be honest, I’m glad I got rejected.
I keep hearing that the publishers, as gatekeepers, are rejecting a lot of good work. That’s true. Sometimes they make mistakes, but let’s be honest with ourselves. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes a writer still has some growing to do.
I can’t imagine what would have happened if I’d self-published my first novel, because it simply wasn’t very good. So my advice to authors is to keep writing, develop your voice, get feedback through critiques. Learn how to revise and improve your work. It has to be good, no matter which route you take. And if you self-publish, please… do so with a professional-looking cover.
Robin: If you would have to give a new author one piece of advice (beyond “write a good book” which is a given), what would that be?
Julianne: Decide whether or not you’re willing to be in this for the long haul, and if the answer is yes, then keep writing and learning, and don’t give up. Don’t get discouraged if your first indie book isn’t a bestseller, or if your first submission gets rejected. Keep revising and writing new books. Most writers love to write, so consider it time well spent, no matter how long it takes.
Robin: Anything else you would like to share?
Julianne: The publishing industry is in flux right now, and it’s an exciting time for both authors and readers. I can’t wait to see where we are five years from now. I hope it’s a good place for everyone.
Again I thank you today for your time. I love the writing community and that those who have “made it” are willing to share with those new to the trenches. I’ll be watching your career and hope to see many successes in the future.
Night and Day
I read so many blogs about the ebook revolution that its seldom that I come across one that makes me go....Whoa! Today I found one. And it goes to illustrate the perception difference between those who have self-published and those that are in traditional publishing.
The post I came across today was entitled: Five Things to Know about the eRevolution. I'd like to address each of the 5 points raised.
- "you have to ask yourself whether the opportunity cost of spending months writing a novel and then only getting $50 through Amazon is worth it." - Why does this person assume that you'll only make $50 through Amazon? Take a look at Kindle boards and you'll see many people selling hundreds of books, a good number selling thousands of books, and a respectable number selling tens of thousands of books. But that's not what bugs me most about this point #1 - which is so what is the alternative offered? If a book is only going to sell $50 through Amazon it is not going to be picked up by traditional publishing so it's not like traditional is an alternative offered.
- Think of e-books like apps." - What a strange statement. ebooks are not apps - they are ... books. ebooks are just another format and one that is growing quickly. Amazon now sells 115 ebooks for every paperback sold. This is the fastest growing of all book formats it is not something completely different it is a book and should be thought of like one.
- "The advance you can earn through traditional publishing may or may not end up being more than you'd make electronically (odds are it'll be more), but the beauty of the advance is in the word itself: you get it before you sell a single copy." You get your money MUCH faster in ebook world. Traditional publishing is slow...really slow. I still don't have a traditional publishing contract as of March 15th and we "agreed" on terms on November 15 so her it is 4 months later and I don't have a dime - while in that same time I've made more than the entire six-figure advance that I'll get in installments. ebook income comes in just a few months advances (especially for multiple book deals) can take years to "fully come in.
- "Consider getting outside help. Even assuming you're a great writer, that doesn't necessarily mean you're a great editor, marketing manager, sales(wo)man, or graphic/web designer." - I'll give you this one - to a degree - yes as a self-published author you need to hire editor and cover designer (services traditional will do for your) but as for marketing efforts - well both self published and traditional published have to work this equally.
- Read everything you can on search engine optimization (SEO), on-line advertising, and keywords in order to make sure your work is readily available when its title or your name is entered into search engines like Google or Bing. Again I don't see why this is different between traditionally published or self-published. If you work on "getting your name out there" you need to do it regardless of how you are published.
Buying the Bestseller List
Suppose a debut writer lands a book deal. For a modest advance; no one's expecting fireworks. Now, further suppose this writer has a war chest set aside for this day, and is willing to spend $100k+ of his own money on publicity, and quit his day job to make darn sure the book earns out the advance (this writer is determined, independently wealthy, and doesn't really care whether, objectively, this shot in the dark makes good business sense - it clearly does not).
My question is NOT "is it possible to buy your way to the bestseller list?" Let's presume it is with enough money and effort, albeit highly unlikely. Rather, my question is this: will the publisher stand behind this writer and allow him to buy ads in the trade pubs and co-op space at the front of bookstores, bring in an outside PR firm and purchase a few thousand review copies, etc.? Or is this sort of thing considered "untoward" in the industry?
Publishers are incredibly supportive/enthusiastic about an author who wants to work hard on their own publicity and marketing. It’s not untoward at all; in fact, these days, it’s almost required. The one thing I would encourage you to do when spending your money is make sure you’re working with the publisher to make the most of your dollar. In other words, make sure that you’re constantly communicating about what you’re both doing so you’re not wasting money simply doubling efforts.
A question for you though. If you have $100k to spend, why wouldn’t you simply epublish and make more in royalties? Forget the modest advance.
Jessica
My question is NOT "is it possible to buy your way to the bestseller list?" Let's presume it is with enough money and effort, albeit highly unlikely. Rather, my question is this: will the publisher stand behind this writer and allow him to buy ads in the trade pubs and co-op space at the front of bookstores, bring in an outside PR firm and purchase a few thousand review copies, etc.? Or is this sort of thing considered "untoward" in the industry?
Publishers are incredibly supportive/enthusiastic about an author who wants to work hard on their own publicity and marketing. It’s not untoward at all; in fact, these days, it’s almost required. The one thing I would encourage you to do when spending your money is make sure you’re working with the publisher to make the most of your dollar. In other words, make sure that you’re constantly communicating about what you’re both doing so you’re not wasting money simply doubling efforts.
A question for you though. If you have $100k to spend, why wouldn’t you simply epublish and make more in royalties? Forget the modest advance.
Jessica
Indies and Traditional Publishers Share the top 20
Just a quick post. I noticed today that the top Amazon 20 were shared equally between indie authors and traditional publishers:
- 8 Indies
- 8 Traditional
- 3 Games
- 1 Newspaper
Top Indies continue to be:
- John Locke (4 books) - Hmm what nickname will I give John?
- Amazda Hocking (2 books)
- Joe Konrath (1 book)
- Steven Carpenter (1 book)
Wow - this changed dramatically - as per Robert the shift went to: 9 indies. But then I looked and the breakdown is currently (3/15/2011 8:22 PM)
- 6 indies
- 6 traditional
- 8 games and newspapers
So still 50% but man - big hit by the non books.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
This is a book that I have heard about for years, but have not had a chance to read until this past week. And once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down.It is the latest in a series of books about life in The Islamic Republic of Iran under theocratic rule that I have read in recent years (Persepolis and Prisoner of Tehran being the others). The subtitle is "A Memoir in Books" and that is truly what it is.
Azar Nafisi was from Iran originally and grew up under the regime of the westernized Shah, but was sent abroad at age 13 for her education. She returned back to Tehran in 1979 on the eve of the Islamic Revolution, newly married, and ready to teach English Literature at the University of Tehran. She eventually quits her job there after refusing to comply with the law that women must wear headscarves; spends several years (though the Iran-Iraq war) hiding at home; and then accept a job teaching at the more liberal Allameh Tabatabai University (where she teaches, wearing the mandatory headscarf - though as carelessly as she can get away with, with hair showing!). When she eventually leaves this job, she starts up an illicit study group with young women - some of her best students - out of her home, where they freely discuss classics of western literature.
I quite enjoyed the structure of this book. There are four sections with the first and final sections centered around the discussions that she and her "girls" have in their sessions; as well as the friendships that grew out of these sessions. The middle two sections are more of a chronological relating of events that led her from America back to Iran and through the revolution and war with Iraq. Always, the story revolves around books that are being read and discussed; and parallels are drawn between the books and events in real life. Even though I haven't read many of the books that are discussed, enough of the plot of each is outlined for the comparisons to have made sense to me.
Compared with the other books about Iran in this time period, this book hit home a lot more to me. I suspect that this is because the author was a bit older than the authors of Persepolis (who was a child through the Islamic Revolution) or Prisoner of Tehran (who was imprisoned at age 16 early in the revolution), and she had lived abroad before returning to Tehran; therefore she had a better perspective and could give more background to what was happening. But still it is a memoir, and is one person's experiences of historical events.
My roommate from university was born in Tehran in 1976 and told stories of the bombings through the Iran-Iraq war; as well as the liberation that they felt when they could leave Iran on holiday and leave behind all of the imposed Islamic restrictions. My brother-in-law was also born in Tehran in 1980, and his mother (my sister's mother-in-law - another Azar) was a student of Azar Nafisi at Allameh Tabatabai University. I asked our Azar what she thought of Azar Nafisi as a professor in the time period being written about, and this is what she said:
I can't tell you much about her from 20 years ago when I was doing my B.A. It was a dark time from political point of view, most educated people including Dr. Nafisi didn't have political/democratic activities at that time because of the regime.
She was only teaching english literature and linguistics. She was bright and deep but not talking about things other than linguistics as I remember.
My sister read this book and passed her copy on to me. She didn't enjoy it as much as I did, and found the author to come across as condescending. (Laura - if you are reading this, please feel free to expand your opinion in the comments section!)
There was a great question that Azar Nafisi posed to her very first class, on her very first day of teaching at the University of Tehran. "What do you think fiction should accomplish? Why should one bother to read fiction at all?" She gives part of an answer at this point, "... most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable. I told my students I wanted them in their reading to consier in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes." She expands a bit more later in the book when she talks about novels allowing the reader to experience different worlds, and through different points of view. You can expand your world view in this way, but you can also then draw comparisons between yourself and your situation, and others.
So this made me ask myself, why do I read fiction? I read fiction because I love it. Why do I love reading fiction? I am very much an escapist reader. When I am reading (well-written and engaging) fiction, I am in another time and place while I am reading. But that may not always be a good thing, when the fiction takes me away from the here and now. This Lent, we were posed the question, what distracts you from God?, and after much soul-searching, I have decided to fast from fiction this Lent. I am hoping to now have time over the next to read some non-fiction that has been sitting on my TBR stack for a while. Watch for upcoming reviews...
Real-Life Characters
I am writing my first YA novel and most of the characters in it are based on someone I knew in real life. What, if any, problems would this pose for me if the novel ever became published? Many of the people written in to the story gave me their blessing (over email or Facebook) before I began, but nothing "in stone". I have changed all names and many obvious identifying characteristics, but if one of these people read my novel, which hopefully they will some day, there will be no question who the characters were based on.
I think it does pose problems for a number of reasons. You’ve gotten vague permission from people to use them in your novel, but let me tell you, people have a very different idea of what that means once they read the novel. Certainly things could be fine and no one could complain, but let’s face it, that’s not going to happen. One person is going to complain. At worst, that person could sue you for defamation of character if she feels she’s easily identifiable in your book and feels your portrayal is unflattering. At best, you could lose a lot of friends. Remember, we all have a bit of a warped view of who we are, and someone else’s vision of who we are can be a little shocking. For example, I was recently asked if I was “too nice” to be a really great agent. When I told my husband this he howled in laughter that anyone would ever think I’m “too nice.” I’m still trying to figure out how I should feel about this ;).
From a creative standpoint I wonder if writing this way is holding you back. There’s no doubt writers get a lot of their characters from the people around them, but from what I understand most take bits and pieces to create new people rather than simply inserting people they know in the book. In other words, one character is an amalgamation of the characteristics of many people, not just friends and family, but people they observe in public. Not only do I think this is safer, but I think it allows you the creative freedom to really let your characters be who they want to be or need to be rather than fit them into a mold.
Personally I worry less about the possibility that people will sue down the road and more about the fact that you aren’t really letting your creativity take the book to new places. That by limiting yourself to writing about the people you know, you’re not pushing the book to new heights.
I’m curious, though, what other writers think about this.
Jessica
I think it does pose problems for a number of reasons. You’ve gotten vague permission from people to use them in your novel, but let me tell you, people have a very different idea of what that means once they read the novel. Certainly things could be fine and no one could complain, but let’s face it, that’s not going to happen. One person is going to complain. At worst, that person could sue you for defamation of character if she feels she’s easily identifiable in your book and feels your portrayal is unflattering. At best, you could lose a lot of friends. Remember, we all have a bit of a warped view of who we are, and someone else’s vision of who we are can be a little shocking. For example, I was recently asked if I was “too nice” to be a really great agent. When I told my husband this he howled in laughter that anyone would ever think I’m “too nice.” I’m still trying to figure out how I should feel about this ;).
From a creative standpoint I wonder if writing this way is holding you back. There’s no doubt writers get a lot of their characters from the people around them, but from what I understand most take bits and pieces to create new people rather than simply inserting people they know in the book. In other words, one character is an amalgamation of the characteristics of many people, not just friends and family, but people they observe in public. Not only do I think this is safer, but I think it allows you the creative freedom to really let your characters be who they want to be or need to be rather than fit them into a mold.
Personally I worry less about the possibility that people will sue down the road and more about the fact that you aren’t really letting your creativity take the book to new places. That by limiting yourself to writing about the people you know, you’re not pushing the book to new heights.
I’m curious, though, what other writers think about this.
Jessica
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Why does it have to be one way or the other?
I find myself in a unique situation in that I have one foot in each of the publishing genres:
As I wrote in my Write2Publish short - it really depends on what your goals are - if money is your primary motivation - I suggest indie. If recognition is a primary goal - I suggest traditional. Neither goal is better than the other - they are just different.
I totally don't understand the one way or the other mentality. Why can't there be value in both?
Michael is going with Orbit in the hopes of reaching a larger audience. But what about his books not under contract? Well one of several things can happen.
- Self publishing my husband's Riyria Revelations
- Small press publishing 15 titles by Ridan authors
- Traditionally publishing a series with Orbit books (fantasy division of #2 Big Press Hachette)
It seems as though there is a lot of "anti-traditional" sentiment out there these days. I can understand from whence it comes. The industry has a number of problems and challenges including:
- Not enough bandwidth to produce all the good books they are submitted
- Slow moving - typically 12 - 18 months to get a book to market
- Distribution system that results in 50% returns
- Erosion of the Best Seller Lists by low priced indie books
- Authors who don't make enough to "quit their day jobs"
As I wrote in my Write2Publish short - it really depends on what your goals are - if money is your primary motivation - I suggest indie. If recognition is a primary goal - I suggest traditional. Neither goal is better than the other - they are just different.
I totally don't understand the one way or the other mentality. Why can't there be value in both?
Michael is going with Orbit in the hopes of reaching a larger audience. But what about his books not under contract? Well one of several things can happen.
- Orbit doesn't find the next book interesting enough - easy solution - self publish next
- Orbit does a terrible job with Riyria (which I doubt) - easy solution - self publish next
- Orbit does a great job with Riyria, is interested, and willing to a more equitable distribution of ebook royalties - traditionally publish next
- Orbit does a great job with Riyria, is interested, and not willing to a more equitable distribution of ebook royalties - self publish next
Look Mom...options...how is this not a good thing?
Let's say that his next book is not published through Orbit (or any other traditional publisher)...it doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't like them, or they don't like him. It could mean that they didn't agree on terms. There is no good or bad guy in this situation. It just means that there was not a "good fit" as both parties couldn't get what they were looking for out of the deal.
But...so what...Orbit's books will benefit from readers who find Michael's other books first and want to read more. Michael will benefit from people who read Orbit's books and want to read more. It is a symbiotic relationship - a win-win for both parties.
There are a lot of people who are realizing this and I think, ultimately they will have their cake and eat it to. Some examples:
- Bob Mayer - New York Times Best Selling author who has now opened his own indie press similar to what Ridan is doing - hand picking who he thinks will produce.
- Bella Andre - Romance and Erotica writer who has a huge following developed through traditional publishing who is now making huge $$'s self-publishing (NOTE: She is resisting the $0.99 lemming effect and sells well at $2.99, $4.49, $4.99 and $5.99)
- Julianne MacLean - who has traditionally published dozens of books from three different publishers and now has a top Ranked self published book: Color of Heaven
There are many today that say anyone signing a traditional contract is a fool...I think it is as legitimate a strategy to a higher audience as bargain basement discounting. Will it produce more $'s - nope probably not - but is that the only yardstick we are talking about?
I guess my point here is people think hard and long on the decisions between self and traditional and to berate them because they don't make a choice that fits with your goals is wrong. To each his own I say. Live and let live - offer advice sure...heck I offer a lot of advice here. But whatever you choice you make, if it is well informed then I'm confident that it is right for you.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
At last we can interact directly with readers...but can we?
One of the statements I see over and over again is that for the first time authors can put their work directly into the hands of the readers with no middleman. While I agree that self-publishing now means authors don't have to ask permission of large or small publishers, the fact is unless you are selling thousands of books from your own website or blog you are not direct selling.
Now the good news is (contrary to the famous song) the new boss is not the same as the old boss. Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble are distribution partners and therefore don't limit what you can and cannot say...well most of the time.
I was very concerned with Amazon took a number of erotic books off the market, and what was worse is they removed the books from the kindles and DID NOT reimburse the people who had bought them...excuse me how is this not theft? Amazon took money from people in exchange for a product (albeit electronic) then made it go poof.
I'm a gambling woman, and risk taker by nature. That's probably why I was involved in self-publishing and ebook publishing many years before most people. I'm very bullish about the future of both and feel the income potential for good writers has never been better than it is today. Am I losing sleep at night worried that I can continue to sell through these venues? Nope not a bit...but...that doesn't mean that the level playing field that we have now will be there in the future.
I'm not sure if I've said it here, but I have in other venues, said that once New York gets "serious" about ebooks I can imagine where they make deals with the electronic distribution houses similar to they did with brick and mortar stores that would make for an uneven playing field. Possible changes:
Traditional Best Seller Lists independent of Indie Best Seller Lists (something BTW that I think could be good for both) A co-op system for recommendations where large fees are paid to be admitted to cross sale promotions More in the way of advertising for the big boys Continued ability for only large publishers to make books free
Now the good news is (contrary to the famous song) the new boss is not the same as the old boss. Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble are distribution partners and therefore don't limit what you can and cannot say...well most of the time.
I was very concerned with Amazon took a number of erotic books off the market, and what was worse is they removed the books from the kindles and DID NOT reimburse the people who had bought them...excuse me how is this not theft? Amazon took money from people in exchange for a product (albeit electronic) then made it go poof.
I'm a gambling woman, and risk taker by nature. That's probably why I was involved in self-publishing and ebook publishing many years before most people. I'm very bullish about the future of both and feel the income potential for good writers has never been better than it is today. Am I losing sleep at night worried that I can continue to sell through these venues? Nope not a bit...but...that doesn't mean that the level playing field that we have now will be there in the future.
I'm not sure if I've said it here, but I have in other venues, said that once New York gets "serious" about ebooks I can imagine where they make deals with the electronic distribution houses similar to they did with brick and mortar stores that would make for an uneven playing field. Possible changes:
What does that mean to you ... the author. Probably not a whole lot but some things to consider.
- Make hay while the sun shines - maximize these gold rush days because they might not be here in the future.
- Don't completely turn your back on NY publishing - I'm not saying don't put your work out now (see #1) but while you're gaining a following with self-publishing keep an open mind if someone knocks on your door.
- Do sell direct - and encourage people to do so. Having access to emails of people who enjoy your books and want future copies is always a good thing. Do what you can through newsletters and direct sales to build your own database of contacts.
- Keep your eyes open and think creatively if/when the change comes - does it make sense for you to joining with a bunch of other indie authors to form your own small press? Possibly.
If this new revolution in publishing tells us anything it is that change is the only constant. So keep your fingers on the pulse of the industry and adapt as necessary.
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