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Cover-up, part two

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Trial by Desire

Okay. I haven’t really talked about the problem with my book cover much on this blog, because, you know, you never want to insult anyone.

But…take a look at this cover. No, really. Take a very close look at it, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

Do you see it yet? Hot guy, check. Provocative pose, check. Indication that characters might, in fact, enjoy themselves at some point during the course book? Check. Intimation that the characters might, in fact, engage in some kind of hanky-panky during the course of the book? Check, check, check.

Now that I’ve pointed out all these undesirable characteristics, no doubt you’ve caught on to the difficulty I’m having with this book. It’s one that Lisa Solod Warren over at the Huffington Post would recognize in an instant.

The answer is really kind of frightening, and so I have to whisper. Lean very, very close to the monitor.

This looks like a book that you would read for pleasure.

The horror! The horror! Now, truthfully, I can’t deny the claim. Yes, I admit. There are parts that are intended to be funny. And if you press me, I have to admit that there are parts that are supposed to be hot. My hero and heroine…touch each other. For the purpose of giving pleasure. And, even worse: it works at the time. There’s even a happy ending. Animals do not grace its pages for the sheer purpose of killing them in a heart-rending moment at the end. Children do not succumb to mysterious illnesses in the final pages.

And so we all know what that means: this book is meaningless drivel, and anyone who sees you reading it will judge you accordingly.

Luckily, I am a writer of fiction, and so I’ve decided to come up with an alternate cover for this book. Just as I did for Proof by Seduction, I’ve created a printable book cover that will convince anyone who takes their reading selections solely from the New York Times book review section that you, yes you, are a brilliant person.

Trial by Desire? Pah. Smart people don’t have desires. They certainly don’t feel anything below the waist–at least, not anything good. Let’s face it. If you want to be smart, you can’t admit to desire. That’s why my cover repurposes itself as “Trial by Barbed Wire.” Please note the subtitle. This is not a book about love or desire. It’s a book about exclusion and semiotics.

But, of course, one can’t judge a book by its front cover. That would just be gauche. One must see the back cover copy, too.

(You might need to click on the graphic to read what it says.)

But there you have it, in plain black–er, blue–and white: People who are merely intelligent read for pleasure. But you’d have to be a real genius to read for the mind-numbing pain.

(and for those of you who are following along at home, the sarcasm tag goes off…now.)

If you would like to win a copy of Trial by Barbed Wire, just let me know in the comments section by Wednesday. One lucky person will get the recovered-Trial by Desire. And if you want to download and print your very own personal book cover, so that you, too, can impress random people on the subway, the file is here. Directions on how to use it are here.

Enjoy!

Posted in Trial by Desire, elsewhere on the web | 37 Comments »

On reviews and dentistry

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

This post is inspired by an article in the Romance Writers’ Report, which suggests (among other things):

Got friends? Got an e-mail list from your last high school reunion? Then ask them to go onto such sites as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, and Shelfari and post reviews of your book.

I’ve been thinking about reviews for a while–ever since I was on a panel discussing reviews at RomCon, where someone suggested that the problem with negative reviews is that reading is subjective, and a book that one person hates another might love. The implication, of course, was that you wouldn’t want to dissuade that second person from reading the book. I don’t disagree, of course–I firmly believe that people should judge for themselves, sometimes with or without the aid of proxies.

But there are three assumptions that I can filter from these various points, and they are closely related. The first assumption is that people seem to think it is better to have lots and lots of positive reviews of a book–the more positive reviews, the better. That somehow, a reader is more likely to buy a book if it has nineteen five-star reviews and zero one-star than she would be to buy a book that had eighteen five-star reviews and one one-star review–or ten five-star reviews and nine one-star reviews.

At some level, this is correct: a book that is universally panned by everyone is probably going to lose sales. (This is, by the way, a Good Thing for everyone but the author and publisher of that book. Bad books waste readers time. Bad books make reading feel like a less valuable activity to readers, and makes them more likely to substitute other activities, like watching TV or knitting sweaters. As an author, I want historical romance to be filled with awesome, incredible books, because that is how we create a genre that readers hunger for. I want all the crap to die on the vine–bad books turn readers away from the genre as a whole. Luckily, historical romance is by and large filled with awesome, incredible books.)

But back to the subject at hand: with the exception of those very few books that everyone hates, it seems to me that even the dimmest readers can’t help but notice that enjoyment of a book is subjective. Likely they know this from personal experience. We’ve all read books that were praised to the heavens, that we didn’t personally love; and we’ve also read books that a friend hated, only to discover that we loved it. But even if the reader somehow didn’t notice that reading was subjective up until she was faced with an Amazon page, don’t you think she’d figure it out based on the fact that there were different reviews, saying utterly different things?

This leads me to the second assumption. A person who claims that ten five-star reviews from high school friends (who have not read the book) is valuable as promotion must believe that all five-star reviews are equal. They are not. We have all seen utterly useless reviews from friends and family. They look like this:

“Author B. Obvious writes a masterpiece of literary genius! It is the best book I have ever read in my entire life. The plot is amazing. Buy three copies.”
–from reader I. R. Obvious, II

When I read reviews like that, I automatically discount them. Worse: I discount every positive review that I see for that book, because I know the author has trolled friends and family to write for her. I assume that others do the same. In fact, I know that others do the same. Reviewers and authors get called out on this kind of bad behavior all the time.

This leads me to the third assumption. If you believe readers will be swayed by your dentist’s stupid review of a book he hasn’t read, you believe that readers lack the ability to critically analyze sources. If you believe that readers do not understand that reading is subjective, and so will knee-jerk reject a book on the basis of a few negative reviews, you believe that readers lack a fundamental understanding of human nature. In short, if you think that readers are swayed by sheer magnitude and star-number of reviews and nothing else, your fundamental assumption must be that readers are stupid.

Now, I realize that intelligence is a difficult thing to judge, and that reams and reams of paper have been employed in attempts to determine smarts. But–you may not know this–there is at least one definitive test of stupidity that has been universally employed. I have it on very good authority (well, mine–on this blog, that is the ultimate authority) that every single person who decides to read a book by Courtney Milan is not stupid. In fact, studies have proven that my readers are basically all at genius-level intelligence, and usually higher. Even the ones who don’t like my book.

And so it really, really bothers me that people think that they need to promote using the underlying assumption that their readers are stupid.

My readers aren’t stupid. Deep down, the greedy portion of me wishes you all were–it would make it so much easier to promote my books if you just blindly followed others like sheep! If I could lead you to the bookstore with reviews from my dentist, don’t you think I’d have done so? (Also, I would have visited the dentist sometime in the year before my release.) But alas. My readers are too smart to be fooled by such tactics.

And so, instead, I have to engage them. I have to provide content. I have to–gasp!–write books that hopefully, they will want to read. And–I confess it–even though my cold, avaricious heart wishes I could fool you into buying my books with reviews written by my mom, it’s a little more satisfying to have you do it because you, you genius you, think that it’s a good idea.

P.S. I realize I can’t convince anyone to buy a book with a review by my mom, but Mr. Milan is another story. His reviews are made of gold.

Posted in elsewhere on the web | 14 Comments »

A rant about goals

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Here’s the thing. People are different. Very different. What works for one person doesn’t work for another.

Today I saw, for the fourth time in a week, someone saying to someone else, “You shouldn’t make a goal of getting published. You should only make goals that are in your control. So, you can make a goal of ‘I will finish my novel,’ or ‘I will submit this for publication,’ but you can’t make a goal that you will get published.”

Excuse me while I put on my cranky pants.

Why not? True, if you make goals that are outside of your control, you might be disappointed, and that’s too bad. But what the heck is the point of a goal? If the point of having goals is to be motivated, you need to know how you work. If you are the kind of person who gives up (or who is set back) when you face disappointment, then yes, make rational goals so you can cheer yourself on.

Me, I’m not. If I fail to make my goals, I shrug, because I know they contain an aspirational element. But my goals are there to motivate me, and let me tell you, back before I was published, I was not motivated by the prospect of sending fifteen queries to agents. That would have been a sucky goal for me, because it meant nothing to me. I didn’t want something I could check off a box so I could feel like I was making forward progress. I wanted something I could strive for. It wasn’t the prospect of submitting my book to a publisher that made me stay up until 3 AM some of those mornings, polishing scenes.

My goal was that I wanted to be published (in fact, my goal was more irrational than mere publication). Was this a goal that was in my control? No. But I worked like hell for it, and for a damned good reason. That’s how I work. That’s how I motivate myself. For me, setting piddly little goals that are in my control feels like… an office job. “Today, I will send five letters.” This does not motivate me.

Pfft. Today, I will do everything I can do to make my dreams come true, not chase down some arbitrary predetermined thing that I know I can do. (True confession: I see little point in making a goal of doing things that I already know I can do. I realize people differ, which is why I’m good with people who make rational goals–I just don’t want them telling me, and people like me, that what they’re doing is crazy. Of course it is crazy–but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.)

I have goals for the future that are insane–I know I will never get them. I have goals for the future that are somewhat possible. I can’t think of a single thing that I call a “goal” that is readily doable.

So, seriously. Don’t edit other people’s goals by telling them they aren’t good goals. And if someone is editing your goals, and it feels weird, just tell them to get out of your hair. I’m not saying that you have to write your goals all irrational-like, like me, but for heaven’s sake, if your goal is to get published, and someone tells you that’s not a good goal, the proper response is: “Why not? It’s what I want.” And don’t let them push you around. You know you better than they do.

Rant over. For now.

Posted in elsewhere on the web, publishing | 10 Comments »

On Entitlement

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

I know. I still owe you the third part of my discussion about copyright and the internet. In my defense, I have to think to write it, and at this moment all spare brain cells (all three of them) are devoted to writing books. In the broader sense, this is good for me and you, but not so good for my discussion of copyright.

But I have something to say about entitlement, and I don’t even have to think about it to write it down, so here goes.

In the last handful of weeks, I saw an instance in which an agent accused a writer of “entitlement.” The agent in question is Lori Perkins; the post is here if you are interested. I mention this, but I don’t mean to single out Lori Perkins in this post as the sole source of bad behavior; there were a number of people who have done similar-ish things in the past that have grated on my nerves. This is just the one that pushed me over the edge.

In any event, in the post in question, this agent labeled a writer as “entitled” because he sent two polite inquiries about a partial sent out in July. One inquiry was sent in November, at which point he was told that he would get a response sometime in December. The second inquiry was sent in February.

“Entitlement” is one of those words that has a certain morality embedded in it by implication. That is, if you say someone is “entitled,” in modern times we mean “this person is acting as if they are owed something, when they in fact are not.” In other words, when we say someone is “entitled” we usually mean that they are falsely entitled. Leaving off that modifier in regular speech means that certain things often go unspoken. That is: if you say someone is “entitled” you should also explain what is false about their sense of entitlement. Because there is nothing blameworthy about someone acting as if they are owed something, when, in fact, they are owed something.

In this case, the gentleman in question had not heard anything on the pages he sent to the agent for over six months. He did not insist that the agent in question read them instantly; he asked instead for an update on his status, and was roundly berated for that. And I just want to take a step aback and say… wait, what? In what sense is a person ever not entitled to ask about partials sent at the request of an agent, and not answered? How is asking for a status update, in a polite manner, ever indicative of a false sense of entitlement? And what does it say about the agent in question, that she thinks that the author did not deserve even this bare courtesy?

So let’s start with the basics. No, you are not entitled to be a diva. You should not expect agents to drop everything to meet your every need, before you’re signed as a client–but we’re not talking about that kind of person. We’re talking about the average writer. We’re talking about someone perhaps like the gentleman featured on Lori Perkins’s blog, or maybe someone like you.

You wrote a book. You submitted it to an agent. Now you’re getting a little worried. Maybe your book isn’t there yet. Maybe your characterization is not zipping. Maybe your plot could be more original. Maybe your query letter has a howling clunker in it. Maybe it does. The last I checked, those things didn’t turn you into a piece of granite, unworthy of basic human civility. And an agent–a good agent–knows that even if this book isn’t there yet, you might move on to book #2 or #3 or #4, and one day, your book will be there. In any event, at a bare minimum, you are one of the very few people who had the courage and stamina to write a whole book.

You are entitled to someone who thinks of you as a potentially valuable asset, who starts off what might be a long, profitable relationship with a sense of professionalism and respect. It is not too much to ask that if an agent says she will get back to you in ten weeks, that at the end of ten weeks you can send a status update asking for more details. And if she responds, “I haven’t gotten to it yet; give me another month,” it is not completely beyond the pale to ask for another update several months later, and if that person fails to respond that time, to e-mail her boss to see if she is still around. You are entitled to civility and professionalism.

You get what you see with agents. If someone doesn’t treat writers with respect on her blog or on twitter, chances are she doesn’t magically morph into someone who treats her clients with respect once she signs them. And yes, you can tell. My agent? She respects writers–even the ones who aren’t there yet. You can tell from her blog, and the effort she goes through to educate people about the query process and the business of publishing. She’s not the only one. Take the late, lamented Miss Snark (aka Janet Reid, aka the Query Shark). She respects writers, too, and you can feel it, even though her tone is quite different. Nathan Bransford? Ditto. Jim McCarthy? You betcha.

Want to know how to judge an agent? Pay attention to how they make you feel as a writer. And anyone who makes you think you’re an insignificant worm, and you’re falsely entitled merely because you think you deserve common courtesy?

Run away. Run away now.

Because if there’s one thing you are entitled to, it is an agent who thinks you have something to offer her.

Posted in authors are crazy, elsewhere on the web, publishing | 16 Comments »

Interview!

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Victoria Dahl and I interviewed each other for Rhapsody Magazine, and we went a little overboard… Okay, a lot overboard! So much so that Rhapsody couldn’t print the whole thing.

Now, Vicki has posted the whole thing, in all its trembling, cowering glory on her blog, for you to read. Ever wonder how many boas a romance author has, or what laundry gremlins do? Now you can find out.

Posted in elsewhere on the web | No Comments »

Bad Reviews & Libre Digital

Monday, March 1st, 2010

So Harlequin and Libre Digital spent the last week at the Tools of Change conference talking about the promotion they did with my debut novel, Proof by Seduction, on Living Social. I wasn’t there, but I’m told they highlighted positive quotes from people who read the book and loved it–a lot of anecdotal evidence, the kind that ought to give anyone a warm fuzzy feeling.

What they didn’t do was post slides with the negative reviews. I don’t know if they even mentioned them. [ETA: Angela James tells me that they did mention them.] But those negative reviews were very valuable for me as an author. Here; go read the full spectrum of reviews. They range from one extreme of hyperbole (“This is one of the best debut romance novels I’ve ever come across”) to the other (“This is the single most trashy novel I have ever subjected myself to”).

This is not going to be an “I am a delicate flower” post. It’s not going to be about my feelings at all. No matter what my feelings were about these reviews (and yes I read them all, because even though I am not a delicate flower, I am an antsy debut author who is searching for meaningful data in a world composed entirely of anecdote; and no, I did not ever respond to any of these, nor am I going to now), I realized something halfway through.

Many of the people they were offering my book to were not romance readers. They said so outright in their reviews. This was initially a source of consternation for me. But the non-romance readers split into two crowds. Half of them said, “I do not read romance, and this book did nothing to change my mind about that stance.” The other half said, “I do not read romance, but maybe I should reconsider, because this was a fun read.”

The number of those people who would have read my book had they not had it forcibly shoved down their throats? Zero. The negative reviews were a sign that my book was getting into the hands of a diverse population, not just the regular romance readers who were most likely to purchase my book. The only way for me to forgo those negative reviews would have been to make sure that my book just landed in the hands of the easy readers who already adore this particular type of historical romance. And while that would have been great for my authorial ego, in the long run, it probably wouldn’t have been great for growing my readership.

If nobody hates your book, that means your book hasn’t found its way into the hands of enough new people. And, from an author’s point of view, that is never a good thing.

Posted in authors are crazy, elsewhere on the web | 7 Comments »

Why we need books priced over $9.99

Monday, February 8th, 2010

There’s a debate ranging about pricing. I’m not trying to take sides between the parties that have been on opposite sides for the last week (Macmillan/Amazon). For the record: I am 50% less likely to buy a St. Martin’s press book, because they are pricing their e-books of mass market releases at $14, than I am to buy books from any other house. If I bother to get a St. Martins book in print, I will read it. Otherwise, sorry, too bad. Macmillan, a $14 price on a mass market release is stupid. You should never charge more for the e-book than for the print book. And you should seriously consider making the e-book more valuable to readers by allowing for limited sharing capabilities and removing DRM.

Also for the record: Nothing that I say in this post about a price point higher than $9.99 is applicable to what I think of as general-interest fiction: mainstream romance, science fiction, probably even vast swathes of literary fiction, non-fiction like biographies of famous stars… you get the drift.

Also also for the record: It’s obvious hyperbole to say publishing can’t survive at a $9.99 price point. Harlequin Enterprises (my publisher) has been very profitable in these down times. In a given month, they release hundreds of books. One or two of those–maybe–will be a hardcover or a trade paperback. So threats that publishing will disappear if prices are lowered are to my mind demonstrably, provably wrong. Publishing will survive. It is obviously possible to make a price point much lower than $9.99 profitable, and to run a publishing company on that basis.

But this is not to say that publishing won’t change as a result of a $9.99 price, and while some of those changes would be welcome, some of them sound pretty awful to me. In order for a publisher to decide to print a book, they create a profit/loss sheet. I have never seen one. I don’t know what it looks like. I have no idea what goes into it. But in limited form, it goes something like this:

Expected fixed costs: Editing: $W. Cover: $X. Copy-editing: $Y. Author’s advance: $Z. Marketing: $0 (ha ha, just a little joke, I’m kidding)

Expected variable costs: Printing: $A. Shipping: $B. Author royalties (once the author has earned out). (and so forth)

Expected gross income=(# of copies sold) * price * percentage that publisher takes.

The “expected gross income” will vary substantially from book to book. The publisher understands that increasing price decreases number of copies sold. The publisher (ideally) wants to set the price such that it maximizes the expected profit. If there is no price where the publisher can make a profit, the publisher will choose not to publish the book. (Incidentally, the author is making a similar calculus: she’s adding up profits and losses and figuring out if it’s worth her time to write a book. Some of the author’s profits will not be strictly monetary, but that shouldn’t stop you.)

Now, as I said earlier, I firmly believe that anything written for a general-purpose audience is such that the expected profit will be maximized at or below a price of $9.99. This is because I think general-purpose audiences read primarily for entertainment and enjoyment. When you price things within their budget, they will choose to read more; if you price things out of their budget, they’ll choose to either read other things, priced at $9.99, or will engage in some of reading’s economic substitutes, like seeing movies or going miniature golfing. Most general fiction, and certain kinds of non-fiction, have somewhat elastic demand curves: lowering price easily increases demand, and so when you’re looking at your “expected income” line above, twiggling the price down a bit gives you a corresponding twiggle up in the number of sales. You can see this effect in action: paperback versions of most books sell way more copies than the hardcovers of the same book

But there are some books where demand is not so elastic in response to price. Take, for instance, this book: The Parkinson’s Disease Treatment Book: Partnering with Your Doctor to Get the Most from Your Medications. This is not something that I would go out and purchase, ever, whether it was priced at $9.99, $49.99, or $1.99. If I had Parkinson’s Disease, or a loved one had Parkinson’s Disease, my guess is I would not say “screw this book and its $37.95 price! I am going to go play miniature golf instead.” The number of copies the publisher can expect to sell of this book is probably small, relative to, say, Palin’s Going Rogue. If the maximum price they can choose to put on it is $9.99, do you think they’re going to publish it? My guess is no.

And even if you think that publisher would make money on that particular book about Parkinson’s above, are you sure you can say the same for books like Living with Haemophilia or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Guide for Patients and Families?

The people who need these books really need them, and the people who don’t won’t buy them at any price. Publishers will only publish books that they believe (however rightly or wrongly) will make money. Authors will want to get some minimum compensation for their time–and will at least hope that their advance covers their fixed costs. If there is a book that holds a tremendous appeal for a small demographic, a set $9.99 price tag might not cover costs (either author costs or publisher costs). Books that are needed (or wanted) by a small segment of the population will cease to be profitable, and a $9.99 price tag means we’ll stop seeing some of these books altogether.

Likewise, there are some kinds of fiction that do not usually appeal to the general population. The audience for these books is small, but their demand is insatiable. They would rather pay $14.99, or $19.99, or even $29.99 for these books, than not have them appear at all. The general population usually won’t pick up these books for any number of reasons. Today, these books get published because publishers can charge $29.99 for them and recoup the editing investment–hoping that the small group of insatiable fans of these sorts of work will buy enough copies to make their money back. In a world where books cost $9.99, I’m not sure that will be true.

And maybe you’re thinking–well, so what, Courtney? If most people don’t want to buy those books, why should we care about them?

Well. That’s because those are going to be books written overwhelmingly by minorities: gays and lesbians, african americans, latinos and latinas, certain religious groups. Walk through the African American Studies section sometime, and count how many mass market paperbacks there are–and then compare that to the number of mass market paperbacks there are in the general “romance” or “mystery” sections. Count the number of hardcovers and trade paperbacks. (It’s the hardcover releases that are the true bellwether here: if a book has a planned release that is hardcover only, it is because the publisher doesn’t think a trade/mass market release will be profitable.)

It breaks my heart that books written by and about black people (and by and about other minority groups) are not usually purchased by the general population. But it’s true. And so when people start saying that categorically, no books should ever cost more than $9.99, and state with certainty that all purchases would increase if the price point were just low enough, to the point where it would make up the difference in sales… I just have to wonder if those people are considering the sort of books where you aren’t going to get those extra numbers, anywhere, no matter where you set the price.

A $9.99 price wouldn’t kill publishing. But it would change it. In some ways–in many ways–it would be a good thing. But I think that a hard price ceiling would kill diversity in publishing. It would mean that the only market rational business people could go after was a general purpose market. And I think that would leave us, as a society, impoverished.

I’m not saying that Macmillan is right–far from it. I’m not saying that Amazon is wrong–far from it. I am saying that we need to avoid categorical statements. Some books really do need to be priced over $9.99, or it simply won’t be profitable to produce them. And if we drive those books out, publishing will adapt by not selling them.

(Before you say the solution is then to self-publish, do keep in mind that the author is making the same calculus as the publisher. This is especially true for nonfiction. If the maximum price is one where it’s not worth the author’s time and effort, there is no point publishing whether as a self-publisher or otherwise. Self-publishing may be the answer for some of this, but it’s not the answer for many of these books. If we relied on self-publishing, I suspect that investigative nonfiction would disappear–nobody is going to spend 8 years figuring things out if they can’t get compensation. Self-help books based on useful facts and studies will disappear, for a similar reason. But even authors of fiction written for small demographics will find themselves writing fewer books, as they have to work more to compensate for the reduced income. Self-publishing might save some of the books that would otherwise get priced out of the market, but it won’t save all of them.)

Before I end, I want to repeat what I said at the beginning: This isn’t about Macmillan/Amazon. My goal is not to defend either Macmillan’s or Amazon’s current pricing practices. I have no financial dog in this race: my books (in North America[1]) are already priced below $9.99, and my publisher already prices the e-book version of my book below the print version of the book. I do not imagine a future when a book I write will be released in hardcover. But I do think that it’s naive to think that all hardcover releases are like Stephen King hardcover releases: books set at a price point designed to gouge the public into price discrimination. Some of them are priced at that point because it is the only profitable price at which that book can be produced, and removing the price point means the book won’t be published.

——

[1] A footnote: I started thinking about this question because I discovered my debut novel will be out from Mira in Australia/New Zealand in March of this year. Which is great! And they’ve featured the Anna Campbell quote, which is doubly great. The price tag, however, absolutely shocked me. A friend of mine from Down Under assured me that this was normal: the market there is 7% of the size of the North American market, and so the fixed costs for the books get averaged out over fewer books, resulting in what looks to my US-trained eye like fairly hefty prices. I’m very curious to see how AU/NZ pricing will hold up under increased pressure from global bookstores.

Posted in elsewhere on the web | 22 Comments »

Just a reminder

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

Are you a Macmillan author? Peeved that your book is suddenly no longer available through Amazon?

Just remember: there’s one thing that authors can and should do in circumstances like this (and, um, always). That thing is: link to lots of different bookstores. If your book is unavailable at Amazon, you can get it at Barnes and Noble or Borders or Powell’s or the Tattered Cover or any of a number of other bookstores. It’s important to link to all those places, not just Amazon. When you link to Amazon you’re sending the implicit message that Amazon is the only place to buy books, and in my opinion, the most important thing to me as an author is that readers can buy my books everywhere possible, not just in one place. If the power is distributed among many, many people, you’ll have more experimentation (please, somebody, with DRM-free formats), more attempts to try some price variation (I would pay more $ for a DRM-free format), different books being highlighted at different stores, resulting in a more diverse environment with more choice for everyone.

I know it’s a pain to set up all those links.

That’s why I created my free (both in price and in distribution rights) ebook linking script, which you can run on any PHP website.

That’s why I also created my free (in price, although see fine print disclaimer) link generator, so that those who cannot run PHP can copy and paste links to multiple bookstores directly into their website.

The real fight here isn’t just over the $9.99 price tag. It’s about whether there ends up being only one place where people go to buy books. I love Amazon. I buy from Amazon. I’m happy that they’re selling my books. But I don’t want Amazon to be alone.

If you care about consumer choice as an author, make sure you give readers choice, too.

Fine print disclaimer, rendered in regular type: my link generator defaults to using my Amazon and indiebound IDs, although it allows you to use your own or use none at all. I set this up this way because sometimes I copy and paste links myself, and I am too lazy to keep adding my Amazon affiliate data by hand. So it is possible for you to use the link generator and for me to get a kickback. If you don’t like that behavior, though, you can turn it off.

Posted in elsewhere on the web | 3 Comments »

Winners

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

SO I just realized I forgot to pick a winner of the Completely Serious Compendium of Utterly Dire Events. In part this is because shortly after posting that post, a Dire Event happened to me–namely, my laptop got stolen–and I’ve been in panic mode ever since.

But panic has been averted, and here I am, picking a winner.

And the winner that random.org draws for the commenters is…. COURTNEY MILAN!

Uh. Oops. (Really. random.org drew me. Thanks, Random.) It turns out that winner already has a handful of copies of that book.

So, the, uh, second runner up: it’s Jeannie Lin! Congratulations, Jeannie.

For the rest of you, I am at the Eloisa James/Julia Quinn bulletin board all month, answering questions, talking about dogs, and telling you what I’m reading. Come by and say hello.

Posted in Contest, elsewhere on the web | 3 Comments »

Your power in publishing

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

One of the things that has seen much debate in the last few days is a handful of sentences on the (now renamed) Harlequin Horizons website, which stated that editors would be watching products from the Harlequin Horizons line, with an eye towards inclusion in the “traditional” Harlequin imprints for manuscripts that enjoyed particular success. I can’t find that line on the new website of DellArte press, and much ink has been spilled (or rather, many pixels have been arranged?) into attacking that particular line, both as a positive (if it’s true, why not disclose it?) and as a negative (holding out hopes and dreams that are unlikely to be fulfilled).

I don’t want to talk about the pros and cons or whether it’s misleading or what have you. My reaction was slightly different, and it went like this: I was a little taken aback by the implication that someone would be doing you a favor for publishing you once you’d proven yourself a commercial success. Commercial publishing, like just about every other for-profit business, doesn’t generally make its money off of doing people favors.

New writers, I think, train themselves to think about publication as a gift from the gods, and so a statement along the lines of “if you prove your commercial success, we will include it in our traditional publishing program”–to a new writer, this signals the heavens opening up and glory shining down upon you. Someone might think that this is akin to a lowly worm being crowned.

But if you have a proven commercial success, no matter who you published it with, you are not in the position of beggar at the publishing industry’s table any longer. Whether you published originally with DellArte or Westbow Press; whether you release it for Kindle, or do it yourself entirely with Lightning Source, whether it is produced by Dorchester or Harlequin or Pocket–it really doesn’t matter. No traditional publisher is going to walk away from a commercially viable project that they believe will make money just because you self-published first with Lightning Source instead of LuLu. They care about the success, not the source.

(They may walk away from the project because no editor wants to champion it; or because it’s too similar to something else they have in the works; or because they don’t have the expertise to market that kind of work. But those are separate questions.)

And so my beef with that line is that it encourages people to continue to think of themselves as beggars after they’ve proven themselves to be businesspeople. Have you made a success of yourself with self-publishing? Have a little more chutzpah. You deserve it.

If you’ve proven your ability to be a commercial success, especially through the vagaries of self-publishing, you opened up the heavens, you found the glory, and yes, someone will want to publish you. Not as a gift or as a reward, and certainly not because the publishing industry likes wasting its crowns on worms, but for one reason only: they believe they can make a profit off of you. And you should not respond to positive overtures as if those offering them are strange and distant aliens come to uplift you to success; you should treat them as business partners, and you should choose to work with someone who you think will do the most to help expand your commercial success.

If you’re a commercial success, you’re not a beggar. You’re not a worm. You’re not beholden to anyone for their transcendent grace. (Neither are you a god descending from on high to grace them with your magnificent presence either; don’t get carried away.) Remember that it’s a symbiotic relationship, and if you’re a proven commercial success, you have as much to offer the publishing industry as it has to offer you.

Act like an equal, because you are one.

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