Open Letter From The Author’s Guild, Part II, Response

Reading on the Nook

The Author’s Guild, the premiere organization that represents writers’ interests, has engaged in noble battles with Google, Apple and Amazon and others when they feel professional writers are being gamed by these new, extremely powerful forces in the publishing world.  I believe they are right to be concerned.  From an individual writer’s perspective, we know that the battle of the Gods, which includes the aforementioned digital content giants, affects us immensely.  At the same time, there are now only five major U.S. Book publishers:  Hatchette Group, Harper Collins, MacMillan, Penguin-Random House and Simon & Schuster.  They too, giants all of them, are engaged in the rumble. These few still dominate the market place — that is they still determine who gets published and who doesn’t. However, it seems that everyone involved in book publishing is upset.

What caused the current turmoil are the seismic changes in technology that alter nearly every aspect of said industry.  The culprit is the e-book and its almost inevitable, eventual domination of the book world and all who play a role in it.  As romantic as we might wish to be about books on paper, we have to look at the cold, hard facts before we or the marketplace can recreate a lively, culturally rich profitable (or sustainable if you like), model for a thriving book market.  First, nearly everyone under 40 and many well over 40 have a hand-held digital device or two to connect them to everything they want to be connected to. That includes books. Second, e-books are relatively inexpensive to produce and nearly free to distribute. There are no returns. Thus the cost to purchase can and probably should be considerably less than the hard back.  This means the existing publisher will have to adjust their business accordingly, with writers in a just world taking a much larger percentage of a significantly lower retail price on e-books.  Writers may, in the end, be the least affected. On the other hand the writer’s burden is the only one that hasn’t been lightened or, sadly in some cases, eliminated.  Writing an e-book is no different — certainly not easier — than writing a regular book.  (I might add that the potentially interactive nature allowed by e-books may change the writer’s role in the near future.)

Independent bookshops will have a tougher time.  While many-mid-list writers were ditched by their publishers during the rise of the mega-bookstores*, many bookstores found a way to stay alive. Some innovative, independent stores survived the kind of thing that regularly happens in a capitalistic society, in this case the brutal onslaught of Borders and Barnes & Noble only, when the attack abruptly ended when big-box bookstores went down in flames, to come face to face with Amazon in the digital age. I have no doubt that paper & ink books will continue for a while and that many bookstores will find ways to survive, but the business itself is in deep trouble just as DVD rental places are turning off the lights, so too will bookstores if they can’t learn to think differently. Lawsuits filed against Amazon and Apple aren’t going to change our direction.  I’m not sure fighting the advance of e-books is anything other than an energy-draining, futile strategy. And so far, the Big Five sit like bumps on a log.  What are they waiting for?

Reading on the Kindle

As writers, I’m convinced we must find a way to embrace these changes, adapt to them, and take advantage of them.  That advice, I should suggest with more humility I suspect, applies to everyone involved:  Publishers, marketers, bookstores, and distributors. However the only one that has the potential to be all these things at once are writers.  It’s called self-publishing.  And while it has lost a little of its slimy “vanity press” reputation, in publishing and certainly literary circles, it is still the lowest of the low. And while writers hold the key because they control, or provide, the content, the problem is that it’s not likely that the writer is good at all aspects of the business. But even if they were, would they have any time left to write? The other thing that’s missing in self-publishing and especially e-book publishing is “the vetter.” We cannot review our own books.   Book buyers are (or were) often guided by reviewers.  With zillions of books being published each year, how are readers going to find us? In my genre, The New York Times reviews six to eight books most weeks.  A good percentage of those go to books by bestselling writers who produce at least one book a year. Few slots are left for introductions or surprising discoveries. There are very few reviews of paperbacks, or e-books, certainly not self-published books, e or otherwise. I don’t blame them.  Keeping track of the myriad unvetted books in the marketplace is an impossible task.  And we’ve learned not to trust the seemingly democratic reader reviews on Amazon and elsewhere, since they can be bought by the bushel. The entire reviewing process needs an overhaul or makeover, to put it in more contemporary terms.  It has all changed.  That person boarding the train to go from DC to NYC has 300 books in his breast pocket. And if he sees something even more compelling on a blog, he can download it in the time it takes him to get comfortable in his seat.  That is now.  He doesn’t have to wait for now.

Reading on the iPad

So what do we do?  How do we ”embrace” this new world?  If I knew the answer, I’d be rich.  And I’m not. And I’m not that bright or connected. However, I’d like to challenge the Author’s Guild to find ways to take advantage of what is inevitable in publishing rather than trying to stop it or slow it down.  Certainly, the deep pockets and experience of the five surviving mega publishers could be used to better advantage. An anecdote. Frustrated by my early books going out of print and not available electronically, coupled with my love of novellas (even though major publishers hold them in disdain), I set up an aka publishing company —Life Death And Fog Books— to address both of my frustrations.  But without a company like Amazon to help me set up at minimal expense, I’d be dead in the water. I self-published the first four in the Shanahan series and my first novella.  Later I sold a novella to what appeared to be a creative venture of a very highly respected traditional publisher.  They published it in a revived hard-boiled imprint with other novellas from new and established authors in the genre. They did a fantastic editing job. But from what I could see, after they created a logo and set up a small web site that amounted to little more than a billboard out in the Internet’s back-country, they did nothing. (I can do nothing quite well) No advertising. No reviews.  No marketing that I could find and I not only read blogs and web sites on the subject, I receive all sorts of announcements and promotions from and about e-book writers.  The first novella I published (excuse me,) self-published through my own company, Mascara, Death in the Tenderloin, outsold Death in the Haight, which was the novella published by the Big Five publisher as part of a brief e-book imprint launch.  There was a lot of criticism of B&N and Borders and their Wall Street CEOs for not seeing the e-book tsunami coming?  What about the Big Five? Shouldn’t they have figured this out even sooner and shouldn’t they do more than put their collective toes in the water?

My point is that instead of blaming an avaricious Amazon, perhaps the best support for writers might be convening a book congress determined to maximize its writer/members access to the marketplace in whatever format readers want through companies like Amazon or Hatchette or through new, not yet invented means. Bring in the pioneers from Silicon Valley. Introduce them to the suits at the stodgy publishing houses. Have a constitutional convention to reconfigure a stagnant system or develop dozens of new approaches to connect writers with readers. Perhaps only an organization like the Author’s Guild can find ways to adjust to a mammoth technological and cultural change as profitably and as painlessly as possible.

The Author’s Guild deals with many issues — copyrights, contracts, royalties, etc. — vital to writers.   While I urge them to help shape the future of publishing by making sure we are not petrified by and in the past, I am proud to be a member and urge other writers to join.  Click here for an application.

*This isn’t the first major shift in the publishing industry.  Not that long ago, the big box bookstore craze not only wiped out many independent bookstores, it inadvertently killed the careers of many midlist writers. Huge chains, like borders, ordered large quantities of books for each store only to return unsold copies. Publishers would up the print run of a book to meet the demand, but end up eating the excess.  Writers, who could and did survive with a book that sold five or six thousand copies, was still an asset to the publisher until publishers had to print 25 or 30 thousand to meet bookstore demands and have more than half returned.

Open Letter From The Author’s Guild, Part I

Below are two letters, one from Scott Turow, acclaimed author and outgoing president of The Author’s Guild, a fine writer’s support organization.  The purpose is to gain new members.   The second letter is from another highly respected author, Richard Russo, who tells us about the dangers of Netflix, Google, Amazon and the new digital world.  I certainly endorse their call to membership.  They do many things to support the profession.  However I disagree with their take on the state of publishing, which I’ll take up in the next post.  Mr. Russo makes an important contribution to the discussion, but as bestselling, established authors, they are looking at the current disarray in the publishing industry from a perspective not necessarily shared by emerging, midlist or struggling authors.  Here’s the first installment.

Dear colleague,

Scott Turow

As I enter the last few months of my time as Guild president, I have a favor to ask.

Richard Russo has written a letter that I'd like you to share with an author you know who isn't yet a member of the Guild. The letter follows, and speaks eloquently for itself. Simply forward this message on to a friend.

I'm happy to report that the Guild has never had more members in its 100-year history. Even so, we are beginning a process of self-renewal for the Guild. Rick's letter is the first step in that process, in which we are determined to explain our benefit to all authors in the U.S., and hopefully, draw in many more.

Many thanks, and best wishes for a warm holiday season.

Scott Turow

https://www.authorsguild.net/tools/join.php

An Open Letter to My Fellow Authors

Richard Russo

It’s all changing, right before our eyes. Not just publishing, but the writing life itself, our ability to make a living from authorship. Even in the best of times, which these are not, most writers have to supplement their writing incomes by teaching, or throwing up sheet-rock, or cage fighting. It wasn’t always so, but for the last two decades I’ve lived the life most writers dream of: I write novels and stories, as well as the occasional screenplay, and every now and then I hit the road for a week or two and give talks. In short, I’m one of the blessed, and not just in terms of my occupation. My health is good, my children grown, their educations paid for. I’m sixty-four, which sucks, but it also means that nothing that happens in publishing—for good or ill—is going to affect me nearly as much as it affects younger writers, especially those who haven’t made their names yet. Even if the e-price of my next novel is $1.99, I won’t have to go back to cage fighting.

Still, if it turns out that I’ve enjoyed the best the writing life has to offer, that those who follow, even the most brilliant, will have to settle for less, that won’t make me happy and I suspect it won’t cheer other writers who’ve been as fortunate as I. It’s these writers, in particular, that I’m addressing here. Not everyone believes, as I do, that the writing life is endangered by the downward pressure of e-book pricing, by the relentless, ongoing erosion of copyright protection, by the scorched-earth capitalism of companies like Google and Amazon, by spineless publishers who won’t stand up to them, by the “information wants to be free” crowd who believe that art should be cheap or free and treated as a commodity, by internet search engines who are all too happy to direct people to on-line sites that sell pirated (read “stolen”) books, and even by militant librarians who see no reason why they shouldn’t be able to “lend” our e-books without restriction. But those of us who are alarmed by these trends have a duty, I think, to defend and protect the writing life that’s been good to us, not just on behalf of younger writers who will not have our advantages if we don’t, but also on behalf of readers, whose imaginative lives will be diminished if authorship becomes untenable as a profession.

I know, I know. Some insist that there’s never been a better time to be an author. Self-publishing has democratized the process, they argue, and authors can now earn royalties of up to seventy percent, where once we had to settle for what traditional publishers told us was our share. Anecdotal evidence is marshaled in support of this view (statistical evidence to follow). Those of us who are alarmed, we’re told, are, well, alarmists. Time will tell who’s right, but surely it can’t be a good idea for writers to stand on the sidelines while our collective fate is decided by others. Especially when we consider who those others are. Entities like Google and Apple and Amazon are rich and powerful enough to influence governments, and every day they demonstrate their willingness to wield that enormous power. Books and authors are a tiny but not insignificant part of the larger battle being waged between these companies, a battleground that includes the movie, music, and newspaper industries. I think it’s fair to say that to a greater or lesser degree, those other industries have all gotten their asses kicked, just as we’re getting ours kicked now. And not just in the courts. Somehow, we’re even losing the war for hearts and minds. When we defend copyright, we’re seen as greedy. When we justly sue, we’re seen as litigious. When we attempt to defend the physical book and stores that sell them, we’re seen as Luddites. Our altruism, when we’re able to summon it, is too often seen as self-serving.

But here’s the thing. What the Apples and Googles and Amazons and Netflixes of the world all have in common (in addition to their quest for world domination), is that they’re all starved for content, and for that they need us. Which means we have a say in all this. Everything in the digital age may feel new and may seem to operate under new rules, but the conversation about the relationship between art and commerce is age-old, and artists must be part of it. To that end we’d do well to speak with one voice, though it’s here we demonstrate our greatest weakness. Writers are notoriously independent cusses, hard to wrangle. We spend our mostly solitary days filling up blank pieces of paper with words. We must like it that way, or we wouldn’t do it. But while it’s pretty to think that our odd way of life will endure, there’s no guarantee. The writing life is ours to defend. Protecting it also happens to be the mission of the Authors Guild, which I myself did not join until last year, when the light switch in my cave finally got tripped. Are you a member? If not, please consider becoming one. We’re badly outgunned and in need of reinforcements. If the writing life has done well by you, as it has by me, here’s your chance to return the favor. Do it now, because there’s such a thing as being too late.

Richard Russo

December 2013

https://www.authorsguild.net/tools/join.php

Observations – End Of The Year, Going Back 50 More

My take is that 1963 was a pivotal year for those of us living in the U.S.  The Sixties weren’t quite in full force, but the assassination of our President was first in a tragic trio of murders that changed the way we looked at our lives. Civil Rights had finally punched through to the national conscience. And soon we would discover we were escalating a foolish and immoral war in Vietnam that would divide the nation. The Beetles and Stones had just reached our shores and hadn’t introduced the wonderfully shocking “Summer of Love.” Culturally, speaking though, Americans had not yet grasped what the decade was all about in 1963. For the most part, we were still holding onto our innocence and ignorance. The following lists may provide some insight into what we were thinking just before the world changed.

Best Selling Fiction (As of December 29, 1963, NYT)

1. The Group, Mary McCarthy

2. The Venetian Affair, Helen MacInnes

3. Caravan, James Michener

4. The Shoes of a Fisherman, Morris L. West

5. The Living Reed, Pearl S. Buck

6. The Hat on the Bed, John O’Hara

7. On Our Majesty’s Secret Service, Ian Fleming

8. The Battle of Villa Fiorita, Rumer Godden

9. The Three Sirens, Irving Wallace

10. Ice Station Zebra, Alistair MacLean

Top Ten Grossing Movies (1963)

1. Cleopatra

2. How The West Was Won

3. It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

4. Tom Jones

5. Irma La Deuce

6. Sword in the Stone

7. Son of Flubber

8. The Birds

9. Dr. No

10. The V.I.P.s

Top Ten Rated TV Shows

1. Beverly Hillbillies

2. Bonanza

3. The Dick Van Dyke Show

4. Petticoat Junction

5. The Andy Griffith Show

6. The Lucy Show

7. Candid Camera

8. The Ed Sullivan Show

9. The Danny Thomas Show

10. My Favorite Martian

Top Ten Best Selling Records (1963)

1. Sugar Shack, Jimmy Gilmer & the Fireballs

2. Surfin’ in the USA, Beach Boys

3. The End of the World, Skeeter Davis

4. Rhythm of the Rain, Cascades

5. He’s So Fine, Chiffons

6. Blue Velvet, Bobby Vinton

7. Hey Paula, Paul and Paula

8. Fingertips II, Little Stevie Wonder

9. Washington Square, Village Stompers

10. It’s All Right, The Impressions

Observations— Mystery Novellas, Revisited

There’s been a lot of talk about the emergence of the mystery novella, especially now, when the immediacy of the electronic reader and the shorter book format of the novella create a perfect marriage for those readers pressed for time and find a 400-page book too much of a commitment.  Seems to me that a 100-page novella by a quality writer for under $3.00 is perfect in-flight length and quite a bargain. 

While e-book mystery novellas are out there, roadblocks exist for readers and writers alike.  It is difficult for readers to locate quality work. Part of that is due to a huge explosion in self-publishing. Quality differentiation is nearly impossible.  For writers, it is difficult to find a publisher because novellas are not built into most corporate publishing business models or into the review process.

There have been attempts.  Amazon, through Kindle Singles, for example, pushed for both shorter works of fiction and nonfiction, in which they take an active role in publishing, editing and promoting/  But for the average reader, it is hard to see the distinction among all Amazon offerings. I’ve published my own novella through Amazon.  Penguin’s Dutton attempted to relaunch an old imprint — Guilt-Edged Mysteries — revitalized for new short, tough stories in the e-book format.  But I saw no roll-out, no advertising. They haven’t yet reached any kind of critical mass and the web site appears idle. Not long ago, Top Suspense Group gathered a dozen highly respected, some legendary crime writers to offer their wares, including novellas with the notion that readers wouldn’t have to risk getting a 99-cent dud off the Internet. The writers are vetted. This is a good idea. It also seems like the times are ripe for greater or at least more innovation with regard to getting novellas, specifically novellas, to the marketplace.  Maybe there is.

Yesterday, I received a news release from the Stark Raving Group:

Brand New eBook platform offers 1, 2, 3 Year Subscriptions, Introducing Readers to Thriller, Pulp, Action-Adventure Mystery, and Crime Fiction Novellas by Best Selling Authors

Publishing company Stark Raving Group has launched its Bookxy platform in time for the 2013 holiday shopping season. Bookxy offers users the opportunity to read genres of mystery, crime fiction, action-adventure and thriller novellas written by some of today’s most popular authors including Eric Van Lustbader (the Bourne series), Robert Ward, Stephen Hunter, Gary Phillips, Eric Beetner and Harley Jane Kozak. Moreover, each novella’s cover will be illustrated by renowned graphic novel, comic book, and film artists, including William Stout, Marc Sasso, Roger Huyssen, Derek Riggs, Adam Shaw, Tony Washington and Mark Maddox. 

Currently more than 35 authors have contracted to publish work through Stark Raving Group. In the spring, Bookxy’s novellas will be available through traditional eBook retailers including Amazon, Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, eBooks.com, Ingram, Kobo, and ReadHowYouWant. The books will also be available through additional eBook wholesalers and social media sites including Facebook and Twitter.

Bookxy differs from other eBook platforms, according to Grammy-winning founder of Stark Raving Group, Jeffrey Weber. “These are full novellas, not short stories. They are designed to capture the imagination of the reader and provide several hours of compelling reading. They are written by some of the best authors in the world. We guarantee that our books will never be more than $2.99, and we will continue to introduce readers of the world to new works each month. Our contracted list of authors is growing rapidly, and we look forward to introducing Bookxy to avid readers as well as new readers who enjoy time online in this digital age.”

 

“Bookxy is a clean portal,” Weber continued. “There are no book reviews, nor any distractions that would take away from a user-friendly experience. Bookxy allows users to quickly, easily and inexpensively read terrific works from the convenience of their computer, Smartphone, tablet, or other eReader devices.”

Bookxy will offer readers the opportunity to buy individual novellas for $2.99. Their books are also available via a subscriptions service, which reduces the price of each book to $2.70, totaling $32.40/year. Two-year subscriptions are also offered, further decreasing the price of each novella to $2.50 per book.

“We believe the future of digital publishing lies firmly in the realm of subscription services, and we are thrilled to be one of the first eBook publishers to offer this valuable service,” Weber says.

About Stark Raving Group: Stark Raving Group is a publishing group with an emphasis in eBooks. As creator of the Bookxy sales and distribution platform, Stark Raving Group brings novellas by renowned writers to market for readers. With a focus on taut, terse, plot-driven stories of roughly 70-120 pages, Stark Raving Group publishes crime, mystery, action-adventure and thriller, through the Bookxy platform. Its unique subscription service provides readers with additional savings, through one, two, and three year subscriptions. For more information visit http://www.bookxy.com