News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #25…
#145: What’s next on my agenda? While I’ve been thinking lately that my muses have discovered tasers, torturing me and Donna Carrick of Carrick Publishing to release my next books, I want to slow down a bit and think about what my next releases will be. I have a plethora of old and new ideas. It’s good to reassess which ones I will follow through on in the immediate future. Here are some of my thoughts.
I liked both my old character, the DHS agent Ashley Scott, and the new one, Mossad agent Judy Epstein—two strong women you will find helping detectives Chen and Castilblanco in Angels Need not Apply (although Judy works behind the scenes). Perhaps they deserve a more important role. That would be something new to explore in my writing. Although I haven’t neglected writing about strong women—Dao-Ming Chen and the two agents named above are but three examples—sometimes a character grabs a taser from a muse and goes at me too.
The above is normal. Old ideas lead to new ideas. Then there are the old, unfinished ideas—too many of them! Do you believe that Sing a Samba Galactica ends that major story tree? I have unfinished business here summarized by these questions: What happens to ITUIP? What becomes of Henry Posada? Does the dystopia in Survivors of the Chaos turn into a utopia in the Human colonies? What becomes of all those dome dwellers on Sanctuary? I already know the answers, but you won’t until I write them down!
Of course, I’ve already let the cat out of Shrödinger’s box (I never liked the idea of dying cats anyway) on some of my other ideas in previous installments to these “News and Notices.” I need to organize and perhaps re-edit all those short stories, many that you haven’t seen, and release two short story collections. I’m also toying around with another YA novel—the muses are really badgering me about that one. Soldiers of God needs a second edition as an eBook and a spin-off (I also have multiple ideas for that). So little time, so much to write.
#146: In case you missed them, please read my reviews of J. Elder’s sci-fi thriller, Spectra, and H. Prevost’s thriller for young adults, Desert Fire (you’ll find them in my blog category “Book Reviews”). These two books plus others I’ve reviewed recently—Gary Lindberg’s The Shekinah Legacy, William Brown’s Amongst My Enemies, and Mike Nettleton’s Shotgun Start—together with yours-truly’s new releases Angels Need Not Apply and Sing a Samba Galactica, should fill your spring and summer with many hours of reading pleasure. Or, for young adults and those adults young-at-heart, as well as cat-lovers everywhere, who want something besides Harry Potter on their Kindles, pair up Desert Fire with my young adult novel The Secret Lab. Enjoy!
#147: In a few writers’ blogs, I have been pushing the idea of pro bono marketing. By this I mean that your publicist or bookmarketing expert puts together a campaign for you and exercises it for absolutely no money up front with the guarantee of X% of your royalties from every book that you sell after the campaign starts. Since I get 70% from Amazon for every eBook sale, I’d be willing to go as high as 5%, say. So far, I haven’t had any takers. This leads me to conclude that publicists and bookmarketing experts really don’t believe in their own methods. Or, to be nicer, can I paraphrase Feynman’s comments about education: bookmarketing techniques work best when they are not really needed?
There are probably other phases of the book business that could go pro bono. I’m thinking of cover art (almost a no-brainer—why shouldn’t your gifted cover artist also collect royalties?) and real editing (not just dotting i’s and crossing t’s but real editing help—for example, with plot, characterization, setting, etc.). I can, with someone’s help that understands fonts and so forth, put together a cover that works pretty well. Is it a great cover? Well, maybe, since I’m that one person who knows the most about the book before it’s released. More than likely, though, it doesn’t match the great cover art of an Analog cover (I’m referring to the covers of that venerable sci-fi magazine that’s still around). Similarly, the kind of editorial help I’m thinking about is almost like having a co-author to discuss ideas with—why shouldn’t they get rewarded for their work that might just have turned your sow’s ear into a silk purse?
Why pro bono? Most indie authors have trouble coming up with that money up front. The pro bono business model would allow us to afford superior quality services. It would also force these services to improve their quality and stand by their products. I expect that X% of royalties would have to be set in such a way that they make a reasonable profit, on the average. On the other hand, there should probably be a time limit—otherwise, the pro bono provider can just claim that there hasn’t been enough time. In the extreme case, where the services approve the authors they represent and reduce X for the big name “sure bets,” we return to the legacy publishing model, of course. That’s something to watch out for.
Nevertheless, I’d be willing to try a few pro bono plans. Bookmarketing expertise is one possibility (I don’t care about the usual things a publicist does since they generally only work well for niche books)—although this is unlikely since they’re so used to receiving their fees up front. Even the legacy agents are working pro bono, but not publicists! Cover artwork is another—I bet there are starving artists out there that would love to jump in and get their art recognized with their pay being a share in author’s royalties. Let me know what you think abut these issues.
#148: As a follow-up to last week’s comments on the Apple lawsuit, on Wednesday, the NY Times finally saw fit to offer more my side of the issue (about time, I say). In Eduardo Potter’s article, “Competition Needs Protection,” that starts on the first page of Wednesday’s Business Section, the sentiment is “if it quacks like price fixing, has feathers like price fixing, and waddles like price fixing, then it is price fixing, and the Justice Department is right to go after Apple and those five Big Six publishers.” In fact, some of the publishers have already settled—I wonder why?
Mr. Potter also points out the publishers hopped on Apple’s bandwagon because they’re afraid that their publishing business is going to end up in a place where they’re not welcome. Again, I wonder why? He echoes the publishers’ argument that Amazon will only hike prices after the Justice Department is done with this lawsuit. Perhaps that’s true for Amazon’s own publishing effort, not KDP. Indie authors set their prices with KDP knowing up front that Amazon gives them 70% of that price. In that business model, if they hold to it, how can prices be raised by Amazon?
While Apple also collects only 30% of the title price, their partnered publisher sets the eBook price and how much royalty is finally passed on to the author (hint: it’s a lot less than 70%!). The consumer is likely to have to pay $14.99, say, for an eBook published via Apple’s agency model (e.g. Baldacci’s new thriller The Innocent), Apple takes their 30%, and the publisher decides how to split the rest with the author. In this model, the reader and the writer get the shaft, while Apple and the publisher are sitting pretty.
It’s time to oppose these tactics of the Big Six publishers, their bookstore accomplices like B&N, and Apple’s agency model—no matter how the lawsuit turns out. Please, don’t pay any more than $10 for an eBook. There are readers and there are writers—anyone and anything that stands between them must help the process of the second reaching out to the first, not hinder. The legacy publishing model and Apple’s agency model have to go. In particular, readers rule. You have the power to make the publishing world better for readers and writers alike.
In libris libertas…
