May « 2011 « Courtney Milan’s Blog

Archive for May, 2011

On the self-publishing horizon

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

This is an announcement about Book 3 of the Turner series–Smite’s book. A lot of people have been asking me when it will come out. Read to the end, and you’ll get your answer–and the new title!

Before we get there, though, I have to subject you to some really boring numbers. Please bear with me, as they are marginally relevant.

HQN, my publisher for Unveiled and Unclaimed, only gives its authors 8% of the cover price for electronic sales. This is below the 25% of net (which comes out to 12-16% of the cover price, depending on who you talk to) that other publishers give. It’s well below the 70% that you can get going to Amazon directly (for books above $2.99).

In a world where more than 30% of sales are digital and print sales are falling, an 8% digital royalty rate just didn’t make business sense to me.

In February, Harlequin offered to buy my next two books. They actually offered more money upfront than I was expecting–it was a very nice deal (in publisher’s marketplace terminology). But the royalty rate was stuck at 8%. I talked it over with my agent, the brilliant and supportive Kristin Nelson. We said, “no, thank you.”

Harlequin is not going to be publishing the third book in this series.

You may notice that I walked away from this deal in February. It is almost June now, and I haven’t said anything. I planned to self-publish the third book in the series, but before I publicly announced my intention to do so, I wanted to make sure I could do it right.

And so I worked on a test-case: a novella for a minor character in my first book. I had to learn about covers, about hiring freelancers to take care of all aspects of editing, about formatting, about distribution.

It was a lot of work. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

It was also a lot of fun.

Unlocked was my proof of concept–to see if I could produce something of traditionally-published quality in a self-published setting. If I concluded that I couldn’t, I would have found another way to get my readers the third book. I refuse to compromise on the quality of the work I produce, no matter what my personal business objections may be.

But I’m really proud of the result, and I hope that my readers will like it, too. You can get Unlocked for 99 cents.

So where does that leave us with the third book in the Turner series?

It will be available in both print and digital.
The print version will be orderable through Ingram’s. If you’re an Indie bookstore who wants to carry the book, contact me. I’d love to talk about what I can do to make it work for you.
The digital version will be available everywhere I can make it available–both in terms of geographical vendors and in terms of vendors.
It will be available soon. My goal is to have it up November of 2011–a month after Unclaimed releases–but I won’t give a firm date yet, because the book isn’t done. If I need to take more time to make it the best book I can, I will.
It will be available at a reasonable price.
It’s going to be called Unraveled.
And–I don’t want to jinx the writing–but so far, it’s my favorite book that I’ve ever written. And I promise that I will do the story justice.

This isn’t the flashiest announcement ever made. I’m not flouncing from the room. I’m not proclaiming that I will never again work with the modern-day Babylon that is New York. I happen to like the editors I’ve met, so I would rather not draw mustaches on them in effigy. I don’t like their royalty rates, and I really don’t like those royalty rates coupled with “in print” clauses that will keep rights to the book in the publisher’s hands for the rest of my life. But those are business objections, and like all business objections, they can be alleviated.

I hope that reality proves as boring as this announcement: that no matter what the processes are that take my books to market, I continue to produce the best books that I can, and my readers continue to enjoy them.

Posted in the forthcoming apocalypse, unlocked, unraveled | 45 Comments »

Unlocked is here!

Monday, May 30th, 2011

Yes, Unlocked.

You are wondering: What is Unlocked? Well, I know that a lot of people were worried that the wait between Unveiled (Ash’s book) and Unclaimed (Mark’s book) was so long–February of 2011 to October of 2011. And I was with you–I hate having to wait eight months between releases.

So I decided to offer you a helping hand. Unlocked is a novella. It’s about as long as This Wicked Gift (for those who read that)–28,000 words, about 111 pages total. It’s set in the broad world of the Turners, but it stands alone. You don’t have to have read Unveiled to read it, and if you don’t read it, you won’t notice when you read Unveiled and Unclaimed.

It’s about Lady Elaine Warren, a minor character in Unveiled, and one who I wanted to have her own story and resolution.

Here’s the official blurb:

A perpetual wallflower destined for spinsterhood, Lady Elaine Warren is resigned to her position in society. So when Evan Carlton, the powerful, popular Earl of Westfeld, singles her out upon his return to England, she knows what it means. Her former tormenter is up to his old tricks, and she’s his intended victim. This time, though, the earl is going to discover that wallflowers can fight back.

Evan has come to regret his cruel, callow past. At first, he only wants to make up for past wrongs. But when Elaine throws his initial apology in his face, he finds himself wanting more. And this time, what torments him might be love…

You can get it from Amazon, All Romance eBooks, and Goodreads for 99 cents ($1 at Goodreads–they won’t allow charges under $1.) Eventually, it will be available at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Smashwords, kobo, and everywhere else I can get it; some of the other venues will take a little more time. (In particular, Barnes & Noble put my account in review, told me that they sent me an e-mail explaining why, and hasn’t yet answered the e-mail I sent saying I’d never got the e-mail. Grr.)

You can get just about any format you want for your device of choice at All Romance eBooks, though, and for the remainder of today they’re offering a 50% rebate on everything in their store–that means you can get Unlocked for effectively 50 cents.

Read an excerpt here, and enjoy!

In any event, there’s more to this story than a 99 cent novella to tide you over between books. I’ll get to that.

Tomorrow.

Posted in the forthcoming apocalypse, unlocked | 14 Comments »

Categorical Statements

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

I don’t like categorical statements. I mean, aside from that one–the one about not liking categorical statements. I especially don’t like categorical statements about a class of people. I never have, and I don’t think I’m going to start now.

I like to base my opinion of people on the basis of things like how they act, how responsive they are to others. I decide if they’re good people and worthy of my trust based on what they do. Not how they look. Or what religion they follow. Whether they’re male or female. Black. White. Fat. Skinny. Ugly. You name it, I don’t believe in judging people on the basis of broad-based classifications.

I also don’t judge people on the basis of what they do for a living. There are some telemarketers out there who are good people, just trying to get by. There are some pediatricians who are probably awful. No one class of employment is all good or all bad.

And so while, yes, I will say that you should fire an agent who starts a 50/50 publishing venture, I don’t believe that all agents are bad. Far from it. To say otherwise is prejudice, plain and simple. Judging someone on the basis of their actions is fine–that’s not prejudice, it’s postjudice (to borrow from Carl Sagan). You are supposed to be able to make decisions on the basis of things you actually know about someone. I can figure out pretty quickly that a 50/50 venture sucks.

But you know what? A lot of agents haven’t proposed anything remotely like that. And so before we excoriate them as a class, let’s think about all of the agents who haven’t immediately rushed to exploit their clients. A lot of them are passionate about doing what is right for their clients. To say that they’re all a bad lot is just prejudice.

And think about this: before you respond to this post to explain to me why all agents really are bad, ask yourself this: Do you have proof that all agents really are bad, or do you just have evidence that some agents are bad? Because I don’t believe it is right, fair, or moral to judge all members of a class on the basis of evidence about some of them.

Posted in it's all about me! | 1 Comment »

Birthday Gift!

Monday, May 16th, 2011

No, it’s not anyone’s birthday–at least not that I know about.

Almost two full months ago, I promised you that if I beat Loretta Chase in DA BWAHA, I would give you a short scene between Richard and Smite, one that disclosed all kinds of secrets, some of which you would not be able to glean from either Unveiled or Unclaimed.

Through some miracle, I won that round.

And I have not forgotten my promise. I just delayed it a little…actually, a lot, because what worked perfectly well as a scene to establish what had happened in a key scene between two important players actually needed a ton of research and various other details to make it fit for public consumption.

But fit for public consumption it is now! Here you are: Birthday Gift.

Posted in it's all about me! | 8 Comments »

No, no, and no

Friday, May 13th, 2011

The latest news from the publishing front is that some agents are starting publishing arms.

In case you wonder how this will operate, some of the details are here. Here’s the crucial line:

[N]et receipts will be divided on a 50/50 basis between author and agency, once production costs have been recouped out of the first receipts.

Yikes. If you’re an author or an aspiring author, and your agent offers you these or similar terms, do not pass go, do not do anything else. Go directly to your computer and type up a certified letter firing your agent and put it in the mail. Immediately.

There are two reasons why this is egregiously, stunningly, awfully bad.

First, it sets up an extraordinary conflict of interest for the agent.

Let me illustrate. Imagine an agent lands a traditional publishing deal for his client–$10,000 for a first book. Yay!

Now, you also think that the client can self-publish, and after expenses, and taking into account the time-value of money, the agent estimates they’ll make $8,000 over the lifetime of the book. (Don’t ask me how they estimate that.) Yay! Options!

How should the agent advise the client?

The traditional publisher will make the agent $1,500 and the client $8,500. Under the Ed Victor model, if the client self-publishes, the agent will make $4,000 and the client will make $4,000.

In order to properly serve the interests of the client, the Ed Victors of the world would have to advise the client to take the traditional publishing deal. But this model just skewed the take so that the agent has every financial incentive to give the client bad advice. It gives the agent a $2,500 financial incentive to lie to the client and overestimate the value of self-publishing. More importantly, it gives the agent a $2,500 financial incentive to lie to himself about the value of self-publishing.

At the point when the agent’s interests stop aligning with the client’s, the client can no longer trust the agent to tell the truth. Once that happens, the agency relationship has been irreparably broken.

The second reason this is an instant firing offense is that the terms are unbelievably bad. Ed Victor is talking about starting this with backlist books–books that have already been edited. What is he putting into the equation that is worth 50% of the take? I don’t see it–I really just don’t see more than a few hours of work on his part. He calls someone who scans books. He calls a proofer. He calls a formatter. He calls a cover artist. He pays maybe $800 total for those services–which payment is relatively risk free to him, because the production expenses repay him first. For about 30 minutes of phone calls and 30 minutes of responding to e-mails, he’s taking 50% after expenses are paid. The only way I can understand why anyone would agree to this is because to an uneducated author, it looks better than the 92% that the publisher would take.

Agents who take a 50% cut because their authors aren’t educated as to the alternatives are not acting in their clients’ best interest. On the contrary: they’re declaring themselves to be shysters to the entire world.

There is really only one way to deal with this sort of thing: fire the agent. Now. Even if he didn’t make the proposal to you, if your agent announces this skewed a business model, go to your computer, fire up your word processor, and fire them that same day. Period.

I think there can be a productive, valuable role for agents, even in the self-publishing world. I’m still thinking about what that is, but I think it can exist. But this is definitely not it.

Posted in elsewhere on the web, the forthcoming apocalypse | 13 Comments »

Critiquing, thrice over!

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

First, I’m over at Not an Editor today talking about my philosophy for reading other writer’s work & critiquing.

And second, if that piques your interest, I have two critiques for charity up. One is at Brenda Novak’s Diabetes Auction here. The other is Kat Brauer’s Crits for Water, where I’m donating a critique for a first scene (about 2500 words, give or take). My crit for Kat Brauer should go up on May 4th, so watch for it!

I’ve agreed to match a donation for Kat Brauer’s auction, so bid high and make me squirm.

Posted in it's all about me! | No Comments »