News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #4…
#21: There was an interesting frontpage article in Monday’s N.Y. Times about Amazon going into the legacy publishing business. Well, not really. What I gleaned from the article is that Amazon has a secret board of editors who cherry pick from all the self-published books, both trade paperbacks and eBooks, and offer some contracts. The conditions of the contracts are also secret. No agents are involved, but authors can get advances. The slushpile here is all self-published material found on Amazon. (See also #28.)
This is yet another nail in the coffin of the legacy paradigm and the legacy publishers are running scared. They probably shouldn’t worry just yet, but it doesn’t help when they punish an author who has gone the legacy route for one book self-publishes another (the case is also mentioned in the same article). The legacy publishers’ control of bookstores has already suffered—every bookstore that closes provides additional nails for their coffins. Exciting times. We authors are wondering how it will all shake out. Readers can only expect to gain by the changing paradigm (more books to choose from). The bottom line is that only authors and readers are needed in tomorrow’s publishing world.
#22: You will recall (#18) that Donna Carrick and I were researching the possibility of selling a pair of eBooks as a series package deal. Well, folks, it’s not possible. In my case, Full Medical and Evil Agenda are already sold at bargain prices ($2.99 and $4.99, respectively), so maybe it’s not that much of a problem—the reader already is getting a good deal (readers rule, remember!).
Nonetheless, it would be nice to have the option. Of course, one can always take two separate eBooks manuscripts, merge them, and have one much larger eBook (we already do that with collections of short stories). I suppose there is some convenience to the reader in that solution (two clicks versus one for buying the series in the Kindle store via Whispernet), but it seems inelegant. Another option is to put the each book in the series on sale (see #27).
#23: There are movies and then there are bad movies. Anonymous counts as one of the latter—and I haven’t even seen it! The premise is that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was not only the incestuous lover of Queen Elizabeth but also the true author of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. De Vere, in fact, died before Shakespeare, so William Shakespeare cannot be just a pseudonym he created.
I’m neither an Oxfordian nor a Shakespearean, but this type of movie just panders to the public’s taste for conspiracy, scandal, and innuendo. Oliver Stone’s JFK is of the same type and equally exasperated me. Why not just say that JFK was killed by an alien conspiracy and aliens wrote the works of Shakespeare? Does it make any difference?
The hypothesis is that only a person from the nobility could have written the plays and sonnets. There are many places in Shakespeare’s opus where nobles are portrayed as either villains or oafish and comic boors. If the writer were a noble, that would be a good reason to use a pseudonym, I suppose. However, the idea that the author had to be from the nobility is presumptive and snobbish. Director Roland Emmerich and Screenwriter John Orloff should know better!
#25: Amazon and D.C. Comics have pulled a fast one. Everybody has opinions on this one and they are often picante. Barnes and Noble pulled the D. C. Comics off their bookshelves, for example, and readers of the comics have a variety of opinions, including the one that B&N is shooting itself in the foot, since Amazon is interested in the comics in order to provide more fancy content for their Fire—in other words, the paper version is not affected by the deal, as I understand it. Weigh in with your opinion, if you have one. I’m just an interested bystander—I have no ax to grind here.
#26: If you’re an author, you’re an avid reader—or, you should be! (I don’t know how anyone can be a writer and not an avid reader, but I’ll admit it’s possible.) If you’re an avid reader, you probably have a good idea about what you like to read. If you like a book, say you like it, and say why you like it. Same for not liking it. You can do this on Goodreads or Amazon, for example.
Here’s one benefit indie books have for avid readers—indie readers are more willing to gift you a copy of either their eBook (preferred by me, but I need your e-mail address—don’t worry, I never divulge e-mail addresses) or trade paperback (too expensive for authors in the U.S. and reviewers elsewhere, due to passage, but within the U.S. this is a viable option too—here I need your snail-mail address). Most authors have only a finite number of trade paperbacks to gift reviewers, whereas the number of eBook gifts potentially can be infinite but are effectively limited by the total cost the author is willing to pay.
In my case, I want honest reviews. They can be positive or negative or a mix—I don’t care—but I don’t want them limited to “atta-boy!” or “this book sucks!” Explain why you think this way. In particular, in your e-mail request, I have to be convinced that you’re going to provide an honest, in-depth review. “In-depth” doesn’t mean a thirty-page term paper you might submit in an MFA class either—or a Freudian analysis that will send me off to find a shrink (and probably make Freud turn over in his grave). The review should also be in common conversational English, not Twitter-text.
By the way, I already do my fair share of reviewing, so authors beware—I usually won’t review your books, even in a tit-for-tat, and even if I did, I can be brutally honest. If I run across your book and decide to review it on my own, that’s something else. Otherwise, send it to Bookpleasures.com—someone, possibly even me, might cherry-pick and decide to review your opus.
Remember: Readers rule—and reviewers are readers!
#27: I’m thinking about offering eBook specials for the holidays. Smashwords has a coupon mode, for example.
By the way, for young adults and adults who are young-at-heart, the sci-fi thriller The Secret Lab, is in permanent promotion at $0.99. Add it to your collection to complement those dollar items sold at MacDonald’s. It’s non-fattening and builds brain cells like green, leafy vegetables—or uses them, at least.
The titles that might be on sale will be the sci-fi thriller series Full Medical and Evil Agenda, which are both available on Smashwords. I’m waiting for Evil Agenda to appear on the Nook list, at least, but both these books are already bargains at $4.99 and $2.99, respectively.
If you still think that will mean a second mortgage, look for the sale.
#28: Shame on the New York Times! In yesterday’s op-ed letters, they published a letter by author Leora Tanenbaum who completely supports the legacy publishing paradigm. What about the other side of the argument? Apparently editorial bias now reigns on the NY Times op-ed page. “It [the new publishing paradigm] is disastrous for all readers,” Leora states dogmatically at the end of the letter.
Au contraire, Ms. Tanenbaum. The digital publishing revolution is the best thing that’s ever happened to readers. It means that there are only two groups necessary nowadays: writers to provide the content and readers to read it. Anyone else must assume a subservient role for these two groups. This is the best possible world for readers.
For writers, there are still those that either have or dream of getting a contract with one of the Big Six—they should wake up, read Konrath and Eisler and others, and get on the express train to the future. Sure, I don’t know where it’s going yet, but I don’t want to be left behind! Ciao, Leora.
In libris libertas….
