Think

Opinion pieces offering commentary on various aspects of book culture, publishing and self-publishing.

From Bestseller To Bust: Is This The End Of An Author's Life?

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This article by Robert McCrum originally appeared on the Guardian UK Books section on 3/1/14.

The credit crunch and the internet are making writing as a career harder than it has been for a generation. Robert McCrum talks to award-winning authors who are struggling to make ends meet.

Rupert Thomson is the author of nine novels, including The Insult (1996), which David Bowie chose for one of his 100 must-read books of all time, and Death of a Murderer, shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year awards in 2007. His most recent novel, Secrecy, was hailed as “chillingly brilliant” (Financial Times) and “bewitching” (Daily Mail). According to the Independent, “No one else writes quite like this in Britain today.” Thomson has also been compared to JG Ballard, Elmore Leonard, Mervyn Peake and even Kafka. In short, he’s an established and successful writer with an impressive body of work to his name.

After working seven days a week without holidays, and now approaching 60, Thomson, you might think, must be looking forward to a measure of comfort and security as the shadows of old age crowd in. But no. For some years he has rented an office in Black Prince Road, on London’s South Bank, and commuted to work. Now this studio life, so essential to his work, is under threat. Lately, having done his sums and calculated his likely earnings for the coming year, he has commissioned a builder to create a tiny office (4ft 9in x 9ft 11in) at home in his attic, what he calls “my garret”.

The space is so cramped that Thomson, who is just over 6ft, will only be able to stand upright in the doorway, but he seems to derive a certain grim satisfaction from confronting his predicament. “All I want is enough money to carry on writing full time. And it’s not a huge amount of money. I suppose you could say that I’ve been lucky to survive as long as I have, to develop a certain way of working. Sadly, longevity is no longer a sign of staying power.”

Thomson is not yet broke, but he’s up against it.

 

Click here to read the full article on the Guardian UK Books section.

 

Is #Indie Publishing Worth It? Would I Do It Again? A Tell-All.

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This post by Toby Neal originally appeared on her site on 2/13/14.

Perhaps because of the recent brouhaha in the blogosphere due to my hero Hugh Howey’s continued pioneering, this time in bringing full disclosure numbers via AuthorEarnings.com that paint a very different picture than traditional publishing would have us know, yesterday I heard from a talented writer who used to work in my former agent’s office. This person knew my writing from the get-go. She knew how hard the agency worked to sell my book series, and she had to find another job when my agent retired in frustration in 2011. She has continued to write herself, and watch my career as someone who has seen it from that very first version of Blood Orchids, that, while needing a complete rewrite, had enough promise to attract her boss. Spurred by the Authorearnings disclosure, and “on the fence” herself about which way to go with agent interest in her work, she wrote me a series of questions to help her decide whether to persist with the traditional route or make the leap to “author-publisher.”

The discussion was so good I thought I’d share it with other writers struggling with the same dilemma.

Writer-on-the-fence: Would you self-publish again?

As you know more than anyone, I was devastated when our agent retired in 2011 and I was left without representation. It had taken me two years to get an agent and 179 query letters! Then, we hadn’t sold the series in 9 months (well, we did get an offer, but it was too low and digital rights only.) Read more about my complex emotions here: http://tobyneal.net/2011/08/14/complex-emotions/

I felt after that much “lost time” I had to try self-publishing, and our agent’s comments on the market had been very discouraging, so I thought at least it couldn’t hurt to try. I did, however, go “high end” from the beginning, with a top-tier cover artist (Julie Metz) a publicist, and two rounds of professional structural editing… That first book cost me $12,000 to produce and market its first month. (Now I have my book development expenses whittled down to a mere $4-6,000.) However, Blood Orchids paid for itself within two months after debuting in December 2011, and last year alone I netted close to a hundred thousand in sales.

I think of my books as a start-up business, so I spent at least half of that on new book development and advertising. This has made my take-home income just replacing the middle-class amount I made as a school counselor, a job I was able to leave because my writing income had replaced the need for a 9-to-5. I choose to keep re-investing in new books because, as others have said, every title is a worker bee out there earning for me, and the model that works in indie publishing is capturing your readers and keeping them reading and engaged with a flow of new titles.

 

Click here to read the full post on Toby Neal’s site.

 

What Writers Can Learn From Reality Shows

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This post by Greta van der Rol originally appeared on her site on 3/4/14 (Australia local time/date). Note that it contains strong language

Reality TV shows seem to be endlessly popular with the TV viewing audience. They pop up constantly, perhaps with a different name, different skills, but always they’re contests. Big Brother, Survivor, Master Chef, the Block, the Biggest Loser – and my all-time favourite, My Kitchen Rules.

Let me make it perfectly clear that I no longer watch these shows. I watched a couple of seasons of Master Chef because I love cooking shows and Master Chef actually had a few episodes a week where they went into the details of cooking. The rest of it, however, is a cooking contest. Which brings me to My Kitchen Rules. I imagine a similar show exists all over the world. In Australia, one pair of contestants, both amateur cooks, is chosen from each state in Australia. The couples can be married, gay, sisters or brothers, friends or whatever turns you on. The season starts with each couple hosting all the other contestants and the judges, for a dinner party in their own home. The contestants and the judges all score the meal. After all the ‘at home’ meals have been done, there’s an elimination process where some people drop out. Sorry if I’m hazy. You see, I loathe this show. Sure, I was sadly disillusioned to discover it wasn’t a cooking show. I hankered for Nigella, or the Cook and the Chef, Two Fat Ladies, the Naked Chef. What I got was a contrived game show.

In one of my biennial visits to the doctor I came across an article in a women’s magazine (I hate them, too – a doctors’ visit is the only time I ever look at them), a My Kitchen Rules tell-all. Well, gosh, Mouseketeers. Oh you thought the people cooked in their own homes? No. An awful lot of houses in Australia don’t have a separate dining room. We tend to prefer open living. But the home used for the set had to have a separate dining room so the couple cooking could be sequestered in the kitchen while the others talked about them. That, of course, but more pressure on the cooking couple. Unfamiliar kitchen, unfamiliar stove. And you know all that bitchiness and trash talk? The contestants are told what to say! Yes, it’s true. And, I have no doubt the fuck-ups are orchestrated, too.

 

So what does all this have to do with writing?

Everything, my friends.

I’ve already alluded to the importance of setting. Make sure your setting supports what will happen. Think about how the setting can aid some characters or put others on the back foot.

 

Click here to read the full post on Greta van der Rol’s site.

 

The New World of Publishing: Can’t Get Books Into Bookstore Myth

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This post by Dean Wesley Smith originally appeared on his site on 2/14/14.

It Has Officially Hit Myth Status

When some of the biggest supporters of indie publishing and indie writers start going on about how they are giving up paper books to New York, I finally just shook my head and assigned all the silliness to myth status.

So, since I have the book Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing now out in both paper and electronic and available, I suppose it’s time I start into the next book: Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing.

And Sacred Cow (myth) #1 is that indie writers, with their own press, CAN’T GET THEIR BOOKS INTO BOOKSTORES.

A complete myth.

Of course indie writers can get their books into bookstores. It’s not magic, it’s not hard, and it’s not even expensive.

Yet it gets repeated over and over like “You need an agent” phrase by traditional publishers. And indie writers buy right into it without question, the same writers who fight against all the crap that traditional publishers toss out.

That shows a flat, head-shaking lack-of-knowledge of how this system of paper book distribution works. Kris just banged her head on the same wall a couple weeks ago in her blog, and had all kinds of readers surprised that their books were already in bookstores when they went and looked.

Duh.

So this quick post is just a warning shot across the bow, folks. I recorded an entire detailed lecture on this topic tonight that will be ready next week, and I will be back here shortly (or after the Anthology Workshop that we are holding here at the coast is finished) with the first of the new indie sacred cows to be led to slaughter.

 

Click here to read the full post on Dean Wesley Smith’s site.

 

From Pathetic to Professional: 8 Ways to Beat the First Draft Blues

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This post by Ruth Harris originally appeared on Anne R. Allen’s blog on 2/23/14.

You’re happy, even delirious. You’ve finished your first draft!

Then you read it.

OMG, you think, did I write that?

Yes, you did. 🙂

It stinks. It sucks. It’s so rancid it threatens to warp the time-space continuum.

Think you’re alone? Here’s Hugh Howey in a blog post: “I suck at writing. Watching a rough draft emerge from my fingertips in realtime would induce nausea.”

So remember, it’s not just you.

The first draft is just that—–a first step.

As a long-time editor and author, I’ve found 8 strategies that can help you shape, refine and improve your draft. (Actually it’s called editing and, yes, you can do quite a bit of it yourself.)

1. Embrace the power of the delete button.

Elmore Leonard advised taking out all the unnecessary words. Cutting almost always makes a book better, more readable, more exciting.

Specifically, that means delete all the spongy, weasely, namby-pamby words—the ones that aren’t crisp and precise, the ones that drag out a scene or a description without adding anything except length.

Get rid of the windy digressions, the pointless descriptions, the info dumps, the meandering philosophical musings.

Duplicate your document before you begin in case you get too enthusiastic but, with a safe back-up on hand, go ahead and hack away. Take out everything that doesn’t advance your story or define your characters. See if the resulting clarity doesn’t vastly improve the pace of your book.

Don’t just kill your darlings. Kill everything that doesn’t move the story forward. Save your gems in a “future” file and use them in another book where they pull their weight.

2. Sharpen dialogue.

 

Click here to read the full post on Anne R. Allen’s blog.

 

Common Ground in the Debate of Self v. Traditional Publishing

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This post by Jack W. Perry originally appeared on Digital Book World on 2/21/14.

A storm was created last week in response to Hugh Howey’s Author Earnings post. It was widely criticized by many but also praised. It started a lot of discussion.

Having read most of the back and forth, I did notice a few commonalities.

Some issues all sides generally agree upon:

1) Digital has demolished the distribution barriers to entry for self-publishing. Before digital a self-published author would have to pay to print and distribute books. That was an outlay of cash and inefficient. The author then went to indie bookstores to get distribution one book at a time. Hoping to eventually break through and signed a major deal. Today an author can upload their book and get instant distribution to the entire country. Sales can happen immediately. The goal may be to remain independent or to gain negotiating leverage with traditional publishers.

2) The data is incomplete and there is a definite need for more transparency. Amazon, B&N, Apple and Google don’t publically release sales data. There is no “Bookscan for ebooks” although Nielsen is working on it with PubTrack Digital. Self-published and the Amazon proprietary titles are generally felt to be under-reported if at all. This feeds into the debate of the size of self-published ebooks. By withholding the Kindle data, Amazon has created a massive hole in any analysis. Perhaps a company like App Annie could fill that void and be a resource of data and analytics.

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes four additional points of discussion, on Digital Book World.

 

Impatient Readers Lead to Rapid-fire Series Release

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This post by Sadie Mason-Smith originally appeared on the Melville House blog on 2/12/14.

On-demand services have not only changed the way we watch television shows, they’ve affected our expectations of all media. Instant gratification and binge-watching have affected the consumer model, and the publishing world is taking notice. Julie Bosman reports in The New York Times on a new trend in the industry: publishing release dates for series are getting shorter. Editors like Farrar, Strauss & Giroux’s Sean McDonald are catering to the ravening hordes of but-I-want-it-now readers by shrinking the release dates between installments from a year to a few short months.

According to McDonald, these readers are more than just Veruca Salt imitators—they’re scared. “You can end up with angry and perplexed fans,” he said. “I think people are more aware of series storytelling, and there is this sense of impatience, or maybe a fear of frustration. We wanted to make sure people knew that there were answers to these questions.”

That sound you hear in the distance is George R. R. Martin laughing diabolically. Probably while killing a beloved character. Fans of serials have long been subject to the perfectionist whims of their favorite authors. Who can forget J. K. Rowling’s extra months of work as each successive Harry Potter book took an incrementally longer time before release? Who, even now, is on the edge of their at-this-point-worn-down seat for the last installment in Robert Caro’s Lyndon B. Johnson biographies, a five-book project that has been in-progress since 1982?

 

Click here to read the full post on the Melville House blog.

 

A Guide To Finding One's Voice As A Writer

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This post by Kimberly Lo originally appeared on The Elephant on 2/24/14.

It probably goes without saying, but I love to write.

Indeed, it’s one my favorite things to do. Many years ago, when I was starting out and I decided that I would like to take a serious stab at writing, I asked several former and current professional writers for tips.

Each of them said the same thing: Find your voice as a writer.

Needless to say, that can be easier said than done (some may even be reading this and wondering what exactly that means). Simply put, it means tapping into that unique voice that all of us possess, whether we write professionally or not.

While the tips below may not guarantee that we find that voice right away, they may make the process easier. I certainly wish I had known or done the following when I was starting out:

1. Find writers whose work you like and make a list of what you like about them.

Some of the writers that I have enjoyed and have inspired me over the years include Elizabeth Wurtzel, UK-based columnist Julie Burchill, and the late Caroline Knapp.

Interestingly, at least in the case of the first two writers, I didn’t always share the same points of view, but I nonetheless enjoyed their writing styles.

 

Click here to read the full article, which includes three more specific tips, on The Elephant.

 

Does What You Paid For A Book Affect How You’d Rate It?

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This post by Jane Litte originally appeared on Dear Author on 2/23/14.

When I first started buying my own books some twenty plus years ago, I had very little money. My favorite authors were starting to come out in hardcover (Julie Garwood, for example) and unless I wanted to wait to be the 80th person at the library to read the book, I had to fork over $22.00 or more which, at the time, was a lot of money for me. It basically meant I wasn’t going to be able to buy another book or maybe even eat anything but ramen and macaroni for the month.

Most of the time, however, I bought my books used at the Half Price Bookstore or some other used bookstore that sold romances for $0.10 or $0.25. And when I bought the hardcover, I knew that I was sacrificing at least four other reads for that one book.

As I got older, I was able to buy more books but my reading habit got to be really pricey so I instituted a book budget of no more than X amount of dollars to be spent a month. Because I read three to five books a week, I was only able to purchase about eight titles a month new and the rest would have to be library lends or used book store purchases. During the heydey of chick lit, I was really struggling!

Price has always been a big thing for me when it comes to books and from what I’ve heard from industry professionals, mass market purchasers are very price sensitive. Most romance readers are mass market purchasers although the new readers coming in to the market after Fifty Shades are probably not.

There’s an interesting concept called anchoring. Anchoring is the tendency of humans to rely on the first piece of information offered. In economic terms, anchoring means that the first price a consumer encounters for widget A is likely the price that the consumer believes she should always pay for widget A. (Widget is an official economic term. No lie.)

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on Dear Author.

 

20 Lessons I’ve Learned on My Way to Selling 500,000 Books

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This post by Christy Heady originally appeared on her site on 1/9/14.

1. You don’t need an agent, but having the right one is absolutely the best investment you can make.

2. Co-authoring a book is a great idea.

3. No matter what the publishing house offers in terms of publicity, you are your own publicity machine.

4. That means you must need to know personal PR and have a game plan.

5. Speaking in soundbytes is imperative. Too much dribble means no more interviews.

6. Create a competitive analysis spreadsheet that shows you where the bullet holes are among your competition.

 

Click here to read the full post on Christy Heady’s site.

 

A Victory Against Author Solutions

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This post by David Gaughran originally appeared on his Let’s Get Visible site on 2/14/14.

It should be clear to everyone now that Penguin Random House has no intention of cleaning up Author Solutions.

The only development since Penguin purchased the company for $116m back in July 2012 is that Author Solutions has aggressively expanded operations (see here, here, here, here and here).

I’ve been covering the Author Solutions story for a while now – particularly since the Penguin purchase, which was met with disbelief in the author community. It’s a frustrating beat, especially when faced with a wall of silence from the many companies and organizations in traditional publishing who have links to Author Solutions and its subsidiaries.

Documenting the links between Author Solutions and the rest of the publishing world is depressing work. The list reads like a Who’s Who of traditional publishing. Getting them to discuss their links to Author Solutions has been near-impossible, let alone taking any action with regard to those links.

One exception has been The Bookseller.

Click here to read the full post on Let’s Get Visible.

 

The Terribleminds Holy Mother Of God Lordy Lordy Hallelujah Guide To Creating Super Ultra Awesomepants Supporting Characters

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This post by Chuck Wendig originally appeared on his terribleminds blog on 2/17/14. Note that it contains strong language.

Oh, the poor supporting character.

The best friend. The lab assistant. The cab driver. The sex gimp.

How shitty they must feel, you know? “Hey, we’re all blocks of flesh in the storytelling pyramid, meant to uphold the protagonist. Hey, pass me another bucket of plot, willya? I’m getting dry. What’s that? The antagonist stole the bucket of plot and pissed in it? We don’t have to… wait, we have to drink it? We have to drink it. … Goddamnit.”

Somewhere in here I’m envisioning a human centipede thing, except in pyramid shape and…

No. Nope. Hunh-hunh. Not going there.

You might think, hey, that’s the ideal usage for a support character. To support the characters, the plot, and the story. Maybe to uphold theme, too, or contribute to mood. And all of that is technically reasonable and not entirely untrue, but looking at it that way runs the risk of coloring your view of all characters as being no more than mere pulleys, gears and flywheels whose only purpose is to mechanize the plot you’ve created. (You ever see the ingredient mechanically-separated meat? It’s something like that, where you envision all the characters as avatars of plot diced up and separated out.)

Characters aren’t architecture, though.

Characters are architects.

Your protagonist and antagonist tend to be grand architects — they’re the ones making the big plans. They’re building — or demolishing — whole buildings. They are the demigods of this place. Creators. Destroyers. Sometimes each a bit of both.

But supporting characters are architects, too. They’re just architects of lesser scale. They work on individual floor designs. They’re hanging art. Moving light switches. Picking paint colors.

 

Click here to read the full post on terribleminds.

 

Dr. Katherine Ramsland: Confessions of a Female Serial Killer

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This post by Dr. Katherine Ramsland originally appeared on The Graveyard Shift blog on 2/19/14. As a forensic psychologist, Dr. Ramsland can offer informed insights to the breaking “Craigslist Killer” case. This post will be of particular interest to crime thriller and true crime genre authors.

With sudden dramatic confessors, it’s best to verify before you buy

I wrote about Miranda Barbour last week, here, concerning the murder that she and her new husband, Elytte, had committed together last November. For kicks, they’d lured a man to his death with a Craigslist ad. I used their case to describe how two (or more) people can develop a sixth sense about each other for violence. They have a “mur-dar” radar.

Troy LeFerrara, 42, responded to the ad. They picked him up and Elytte used a cord to incapacitate him while Miranda repeatedly stabbed him. They dumped him, cleaned the van and went to a strip club to celebrate Elytte’s birthday. Their phone call to the victim led police to them, and they’ve been awaiting trial.

Over the past weekend, Miranda, 19, said that not only was she guilty of the LeFarrara murder but she’d been killing with a satanic group since she was 13. Supposedly, she’s “lost count after 22.” If let out, she would kill again. Needless to say, this confession has created a flurry of media reports about this “female serial killer.”

But let’s keep in mind that, at this time, Barbour has admitted guilt for one murder for which there is evidence. She’s not yet a confirmed serial killer. Given the brutality of it, we can accept that she’s killed before and perhaps her stories will be validated soon, as law enforcement works with whatever she gives them. However, until then, we should remember the lessons from past cases.

 

Click here to read the full post on The Graveyard Shift.

 

Are You Legit?

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This post by Andrew E. Kaufman originally appeared on The Crime Fiction Collective blog on 2/18/14.

So lets say you decide to write a book.

You’ve always been a fan of the things, had a few ideas swimming around in your head, and have wanted to take a stab at it for as long as you could remember. Now, here you are, finally connecting with the courage needed to commit those hungry fingers to keyboard, passion to dream.

After X amount of time, your novel is finished, and then, BAM! Away you go, uploading your book to the KDP platform, ready to take on the world and be the next Nora Roberts or Stephen King or whoever you think is the bomb.

First question: are you an author?

Well, technically speaking, yes, because you’ve:

A. Completed a novel.
B. Published it.
C. Can call yourself whatever the hell you want.

And really, in this era of self-publishing, that’s how a lot of established authors got their start (myself included).

Next question: are you a legitimate author?

 

Click here to read the full post on The Crime Fiction Collective blog.

 

3 Reasons Most Writers GIVE UP & 3 Reasons Why YOU Shouldn't

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This post by Angela Scott originally appeared on her site on 12/20/11.

Between getting our words down on paper and then trying to get someone (agents, publishers, READERS, anyone) to care about those words, we may come to a cross point in which we say, “Is this even worth it? Why in the world am I doing this to myself? I think I’ll take some medicine to numb the voices and just go back to bed. Forget it. I’m done.” *sticks out tongue and blows a raspberry at the world*

I’ve been there myself, many a time. But each day, I put myself back in front of the laptop and write. Even on days when I don’t want to.(I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna). Why? Why do I put myself though this craziness? Well, I’m still trying to understand it myself. And though I don’t have a clear reason why I keep plugging along (I’m a masochist. I’m schizophrenic. Like Lady Ga-Ga, I was born this way), I do know several reasons why some writers give up:

Reason #1: Writing is hard. It is. The writing process, at times, can be incredibly fun and rewarding. When the words flow and nearly write themselves, it’s amazing. It’s almost a high type of feeling. A rush. But there are other times, many times, in which writing just plain sucks–the words do not come; or the words DO come, but they are crap; editing (it’s a pain in the butt, but SO necessary. Do not skip this step. Just saying); promoting and marketing (UUUGGGHHH); and then coming up with another great idea. Oh the pressure! No wonder I feast on lots of migraine pills, chocolate, and caffeine.

 

Click here to read the full post on Angela Scott’s site.