Think

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

How To Make A To-Do List That Works

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Fast Company is a site mainly geared toward entrepreneurs and other businesspeople, but if you’re an author-publisher, you ARE an entrepreneur and can benefit greatly from some of the great content they’ve got over there. For example, Belle Beth Cooper‘s excellent article about to-do lists. Who among us hasn’t struggled with time management and ‘getting it all done’?

The article opens with some interesting factoids about the history of human list-making, as well as some of the psychology that a) drives us to make lists and b) sabotages our efforts to keep on top of said lists. Excerpted from the article’s 4 top to-do list tips:

 

1. Break projects into tasks, don’t succumb to the Zeigarnik effect

We kind of have a reminder system built-in to our minds that nags us about unfinished tasks, called the Zeigarnik effect. It sounds pretty cool that we already have this, but it’s actually not that reliable or healthy for us.

What really happens is that there’s a disconnect between our conscious and unconscious minds–the unconscious mind can’t plan how to finish the task, but it gets annoyed with the feeling of it being unfinished. To shake off that feeling, it nags the conscious mind with reminders about the task–not to finish it, but simply to encourage us to make a plan.

If you’ve heard of David Allen’s GTD method, you’ll be familiar with his concept of “next steps,” which is pretty much the same thing. It’s the process of breaking down a project or task into smaller tasks, and planning which one will be the next step towards completing the whole thing.

This abates the nagging of the unconscious brain, as it’s satisfied that at some point we’ll get onto that task, and we know exactly how we’ll do it.

Maria Popova at Brain Pickings says the essentials of creating these do-able next steps are to make “a few very specific, actionable, non-conflicting items.”

 

Click here to read the full article, The Amazing History Of The To-Do List–And How To Make One That Actually Works, on Fast Company.

 

14 Published Novels Written During NaNoWriMo

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This post, by Stacey Conradt, originally appeared on the Mental Floss site on 11/1/13. It may provide some much-needed motivation to hang in there for this year’s NaNoWriMo’ers.

While November means turkey, football and marathon shopping for some, it’s a month of being hunched over at a laptop slurping cup after cup of caffeine for others.

Yep—it’s National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. People who are crazy ambitious enough to accept the challenge aim to write 50,000 words in November, which is about 1,667 words every day. While no one expects masterpieces in such a short time span—the goal is to force writers to get some words down on paper without overthinking it—sometimes it happens. Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants is a particularly successful example. But she’s not the only author to see buckling down and hammering out 50,000 words in a month pay off. Here are 14 other NaNo books that can be found on the shelves at a bookstore near you.

1. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. She wrote it during two NaNos, but we’re not holding it against her. The Night Circus spent seven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and won an Alex Award from the American Library Association in 2012.

2. The Beautiful Land by Alan Averill. From Amazon: “The Beautiful Land is part science fiction, part horror—and, at its core, a love story between a brilliant young computer genius and the fragile woman he has loved since high school. Now, he must bend time and space to save her life as the world around them descends into apocalyptic madness.”

3. Wool by Hugh Howey. From Barnes and Noble: “In a ruined and toxic landscape, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Sheriff Holston, who has unwaveringly upheld the silo’s rules for years, unexpectedly breaks the greatest taboo of all: He asks to go outside.” Ridley Scott has expressed interest in directing the Wool movie, the rights to which have been purchased by 20th Century Fox.

4. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. Another NYT bestseller, The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a young adult novel that takes place in a post-apocalyptic United States that is overrun with zombies. This is the first of a trilogy, and the film rights have been optioned by Seven Star Pictures.

5. Don’t Let Me Go by J.H. Trimble. From Publisher’s Weekly: “Nate and Adam are smalltown adolescents whose relationship is threatened when Adam moves to New York. Nate recalls the first moments of their romance and its development even as it’s threatened by the arrival of Luke, a closeted younger teen who’s attracted to Nate. Told frankly and honestly from Nate’s point of view, the novel explores issues like coming out, parental acceptance (and its lack), antigay violence, and the attitudes of faculty and fellow students, whose ranks provide both antagonists and allies. Layered with the gritty everyday details of teen existence, the book provides a convincingly clear window into the many perils and sometimes scant pleasures of life in high school while never feeling overly grim; it will be appreciated by adults and teens alike.”

 

Read the rest of the post on Mental Floss.

 

Authors of the Digital Age–What It Takes to Be a Real Author CEO

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This post, by Kristen Lamb, originally appeared on Kristen Lamb’s blog on 4/12/13.

I do a lot of reading of other blogs, particularly blogs that aren’t about writing. I think this keeps my information fresh. As many of you might know, financial blogger Steve Tobak is one of my favorites, and he regularly inspires my writing.

This past week he had a neat post What It Takes to Be a Real CEO, and there were so many of the principles that applied to being a Digital Age Author. We are now Author CEOs, no matter what path we take. So what does it take to be a REAL Author CEO?

Passion for Work

We must have a passion for writing and a willingness to work hard. To be blunt, being a professional writer is a lot of HARD work. Writers are CEO of a company of one, and many times our writing work is on top of a day job, family, children, and other responsibilities. Going pro isn’t all floating around on a unicorn cloud hanging out with the muse.

All professional authors have to read, learn the craft, make work count, finish the books, and be ruthless and relentless in our edits until the work is complete. We have to build a platform, promote, keep up with taxes, accounting, deductions, receipts, spending, write-offs, mailing lists, etc.

This means we need to get up earlier and stay up later than most people, and we will have to sacrifice a lot. This is why we need passion. Passion takes the sting out of sacrifice. While others are whining, we are working.

Relentless Pursuit of the Dream, Even When Others Think You’re Nuts

In the beginning, this is particularly important. No one will take you seriously. Accept it and sally forth. Brush the dust from your feet.

Others want us to fail, because if we succeed, then we are proof success is a choice. Others will resent us because they want to believe they aren’t in control of their futures. They want to keep their victim mentality because it’s safe and absolves them of personal responsibility for their own futures.

Expect push-back.

Courage in the Face of Adversity

The new paradigm is changing and can be just as scary as the old one. Those who choose a traditional path know the odds of finding an agent and landing a publishing deal are not the best. Most writers who query will fail.

When it comes to a non-traditional path, we have to learn so many new things and wear frightening and unfamiliar hats. Again, the odds are better, but competition is staggering, discoverability is a growing nightmare, and the workload is daunting to even the best of us. But, we must have the courage to do what scares us if we want the dream.

Stickwithitness

 

Read the rest of the post on Kristen Lamb’s blog.

BookBinding: Making A Travel Notebook

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Increasingly, we work and play in a digital world.

I read, write, publish, market and often interact with friends online, which I absolutely love and value highly. But recently, I’ve been craving some physical creation, so last week I went along to the London Centre for Book Arts and joined one of their awesome workshops.

Because I write in so many Moleskine journals, I decided to make a Travel Notebook, complete with concertina folded envelope in the back. I’d like to eventually make my own paper, print my own work on it and bind limited editions myself – but that’s a while away! (I got the idea from Cory Doctorow’s awesome limited edition work)

Book binding

I made this!

In the (under 1 min) video below, you can see time-lapse footage of the process plus some pics. You can also watch it here on YouTube.

Extra Information:

  • Find out more from London Centre of Book Arts – and apparently there are similar centres in major cities all over the world. Or try searching for ‘book-binding’ locally.
  • I’m wearing a Nike FuelBand on my wrist, which is proving to be a fantastic way to get me motivated to move more in this very sedentary writer’s life we lead!
  • The video was shot with my iPhone using TimeLapse app which takes a photo every 10 seconds and creates a video from it. I just set it up with a GorillaPod adaptable tripod.

Have you tried book-binding, paper-making or any other physical book art? Or would you like to? I’d love to hear about it. Please do leave a comment [in the comments section of the original post].

 

This is a reprint of a post from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

 

The Ongoing Angst of Successful Writers – Conclusions

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Publetariat Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on Alan Baxter‘s Warrior Scribe site on 4/11/13. Alan is a regular Contributor here at Publetariat, but due to the length of this piece, and its numerous references to related posts on Alan’s site that have not been reprinted here on Publetariat, we are reprinting only the first portion of the article and providing a link back to the rest at the end of our excerpt.

I’ve really enjoyed the recent run of guest posts from six of Australia’s most successful genre writers. Here I’ll try to collate the overlapping themes from those posts into one place (and have links to all the posts in one place too.) First and foremost, I’d like to thank the six respondents for giving their time and honesty to the idea. So here are the links to each individual post, with my heartfelt thanks:

Kaaron Warren

Jo Anderton

Angela Slatter

Lisa L Hannett

Trudi Canavan

Margo Lanagan

I expected considerable consensus from all of these talented writers to most of the questions. It’s pretty obvious the questions were loaded to that end, but that was because I’ve regularly seen those kind of comments from writers of all styles and all levels of success. But let’s go through each of the three questions and see what the key themes were.

1. What do you still fear as a writer, when it comes to putting your work out there? What fills you with doubt and angst?

This is the question that I knew would draw the most consensus. The over-riding responses were of “imposter syndrome” – that dark and quiet thought that no matter how much success you see, at some point everyone is going to realise you’re a hack, or that one day everyone will point and laugh because they’ve all been having you along all this time. It’s simply the fear of not being good enough, contrary to all the available evidence. Or there’s been some terrible mistake.

Kaaron said: I’m still sure that one day someone will say, “You do realise it’s all been an elaborate joke we’ve played on you? You’re a crap writer and no one has ever liked anything you’ve ever written.” Trudi said: “one day I’ll discover that every person who liked and bought my books was just being polite” although she also pointed out: “but I can laugh it off.” That’ll happen when you’ve sold as many books as Trudi has!

In terms of being good enough, Jo said: “I fear being ignored, but I fear attention too. Silence is disheartening, but when people do sit up and take notice I’m terrified they’ll hate the story, tell everyone they know, and then laugh at me. Loudly.” Angela said: “you’ve lavished all your love, attention and care on it, that you’ve flensed and polished it until it looks like a slightly evil supermodel, but that when it’s out in the public gaze someone will find a fault you didn’t see.”

Lisa used a quote from Keats that summed things up well and she explained it thus: “It’s that niggling doubt that you’re not necessarily crap, but that what you’re writing isn’t adding anything exciting to the mix. That it’s just mediocre. That it’s not just forgotten, but forgettable. Now that’s scary.”

I think these fears are actually encouraging. Of course, that doesn’t help in our darkest moments of self-doubt, but the fear we’re not good enough leads to a desire to always be better. I think that’s essential to growth in any art. If we start to think we’re good enough, that we can’t learn more or get better, then surely our work will stagnate and become, at best, ordinary. Not necessarily crap, as Lisa says, but pedestrian. In the pursuit of any art, we need to constantly strive to be better, to out-do what we’ve done before. Sometimes we’ll succeed and sometimes we won’t – we may write something that truly resonates and then write a lot of stuff that doesn’t reach those heights again for quite a while. But we must always strive to do so regardless and surely, as our skill and experience improve, we will reach those heights again, and beyond. There’s no ceiling to how high we can go if we always strive to improve. I think the fear of not being good enough is what constantly drives us in that pursuit.

Margo made an interesting point that bad reviews can sometimes fuel that self-doubt. She said: “those voices feed directly into, and reinforce, that other voice inside me that’s ready to tear me down and call me a fraud”.

Interestingly enough, just yesterday Chuck Wendig posted this blog, about that very same thing. He calls it the “writer as stowaway”. He has two new books coming out soon and the early copies have gone out for review. He describes the feeling like this:

all the while I’ve got that flurry of fear-bubbles in my tummy: egads they won’t like it they’ll despise it I’m going to receive hate mail people might punch me Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly will probably give me whatever the opposite of a starred review is like maybe they’ll rub a cat’s butthole on my face in public OH GODS THAT’S HOW BAD THIS BOOK IS.

In classic Wendig style, he echoes exactly what the writers in my guest posts have said.

The second question I asked was:

2. What career markers do you still strive for? What heights are you determined to scale?

 

Read the rest of the article on Alan Baxter’s Warrior Scribe.

 

Authors Guild's Scott Turow: The Supreme Court, Google, Ebooks, Libraries & Amazon Are All Destroying Authors

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This post, by Mike Masnick, originally appeared on TechDirt on 4/8/13.

from the old-man-yells-at-cloud dept
We’ve written more than a few times about Scott Turow, a brilliant author, but an absolute disaster as the Luddite-driven head of the Authors’ Guild. During his tenure, he’s done a disservice to authors around the globe by basically attacking everything new and modern — despite any opportunities it might provide — and talked up the importance of going back to physical books and bookstores. He’s an often uninformed champion of a past that never really existed and which has no place in modern society. He once claimed that Shakespeare wouldn’t have been successful under today’s copyright law because of piracy, ignoring the fact that copyright law didn’t even exist in the age of Shakespeare. His anti-ebook rants are just kind of wacky.

However, in his latest NY Times op-ed, he’s basically thrown all of his cluelessness together in a rambling mishmash of “and another thing”, combined with his desire to get those nutty technology kids off his lawn. For the few thousand members of the Authors Guild, it’s time you found someone who was actually a visionary to lead, rather than a technology-hating reactionary pining for a mythical time in the past.

First up, a confused reaction to the Supreme Court’s protection of first sale rights in Kirtsaeng.

LAST month, the Supreme Court decided to allow the importation and resale of foreign editions of American works, which are often cheaper than domestic editions. Until now, courts have forbidden such activity as a violation of copyright. Not only does this ruling open the gates to a surge in cheap imports, but since they will be sold in a secondary market, authors won’t get royalties.

First of all, no, this was not a “change” in US law. Courts had not forbidden this particular situation in the past, because the specifics of this hadn’t really been tested in the past other than a few recent cases with somewhat different fact patterns. The point of the Supreme Court’s ruling was to reinforce what most people already believed the law to be: if you buy a book, you have the right to resell it.

As for the “surge” in cheap imports, let’s wait and see. It might impact markets like textbooks, which are artificially inflated, but for regular books? It seems like a huge stretch to think that it would be cost effective to ship in foreign books just for resale. And, of course, secondary markets have existed for ages, and studies have shown that they actually help authors because it makes it less risky to buy a new book, since people know they can resell it. Turow admits that secondary markets have always existed, but then jumps to what this is all “really” about in his mind:

This may sound like a minor problem; authors already contend with an enormous domestic market for secondhand books. But it is the latest example of how the global electronic marketplace is rapidly depleting authors’ income streams. It seems almost every player — publishers, search engines, libraries, pirates and even some scholars — is vying for position at authors’ expense.

Yes, that’s right. The Kirtsaeng decision isn’t just about first sale, it’s really about the evil “global electronic marketplace” sucking authors dry. Of course, Turow fails to mention that Kirtsaeng had next to nothing to do with the internet. Yes, Kirtsaeng ended up selling his books via eBay, but tons of books sell on eBay. That had no impact on the ruling at all. The issue in the ruling was about books legally purchased abroad, and Kirtsaeng did that without the internet — he just had friends and family back in Thailand buying books for him. To blame that on “the global electronic marketplace” is just completely random and wrong. It seems like the kind of thing someone says when they just want to blame technology for everything. Turow has his anti-technology hammer, but he’s got to stop seeing nails in absolutely everything.

 

Read the rest of the post on TechDirt.

Live First, Write Later: The Case for Less Creative-Writing Schooling

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This post, by Jon Reiner, originally appeared on The Atlantic site on 4/9/13.

An unexpected brush with professional jealousy reminds a writing teacher that it’s what you have to say, not how well you’ve learned to say it, that’s the basis for great stories.

The other day, a college student sent me an autobiographical essay to read, following my visiting lecture to his creative-writing class. I had written my e-mail address on the white board, and he was the only student who took me up on my general offer of help. What I received wasn’t well written. It suffered from too much telling and not enough showing—a common shortcoming in student narratives—but buried in its moony diary entries was the germ of a compelling story.

I won’t spoil it here, but seeded in the essay—as I saw it—was the hook of a young man’s shocking decision to walk away from the pinnacle of his adolescent dreams in order to pursue a far less certain adult future. A journey of destiny aborted and reimagined, a tale of courage and risk. Potentially more than a typical student essay.

As my wife and kids watched a TiVoed Glee, I wrote several paragraphs of encouraging and, I hoped, constructive editorial notes, and didn’t give it much more thought until I received an e-mail from the student two days later. He graciously thanked me for my comments and wrote ecstatically that his rough piece had just been accepted for publication by The New Yorker online! Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who recognized an undeveloped story lurking within the wandering pages. According to him, “I met with the editor I’m going to work with, and it might as well have been you talking.” Lucky me.

I shared the news with the student’s creative-writing instructor who’d invited me to class, and she—like me, like every coffee-shop writer in New York—was shot through with a mixed serum of emotions: happy for a nice person’s success; astounded by the coup of his incomplete writing’s placement; envious of the ease at which he’d reached this peak; stunned by the willingness of the magazine to work with material this preliminary and a writer this unproven.

Having labored over a finely tuned story that was recently rejected by the same publication, the bite of the student’s triumph stung. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I felt like a fool, trying to chisel perfect sentences when it clearly didn’t matter. If you had a story in you—as the student did—the quality of the writing wasn’t important, even for the esteemed New Yorker, reflecting this period when writers are tasked to compete with piano-playing cats rather than with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Story is and has always been king, but now more than ever before, it is the entire court. Print and online publications are ginned up to shine an anecdote, an experience, into a gem that will be plucked and dittoed through the social media.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Atlantic.

Am I Good Enough?

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This post, by Steven Ramirez, originally appeared on his Glass Highway site and is reprinted here in full with the author’s permission.

Douglas Adams had a name for it. In fact, it was the title of one of his books: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Sounds dreamy, right? Adams used the phrase in the service of his second detective novel featuring Dirk Gently. In the book, Adams deals with man-made gods who, no longer worshipped, have become destitute, as well as with Gently’s crippling guilt.

For me, though, the phrase aptly sums up that miserable time between two and four in the morning when your eyes fly open suddenly from a troubled sleep, you sit straight up and ask yourself, “Am I good enough?”

If you’re a writer, you know exactly what I’m talking about. All that nonsense about opening a vein and finding your muse—it’s rubbish. What really matters to a writer is Do they like me? Consider this quote from Adams’ book:

There are some people you like immediately, some whom you think you might learn to like in the fullness of time, and some that you simply want to push away from you with a sharp stick.

We all want to be that first guy, but will grudgingly settle for the second. And, God help us, we live in horror of third when it comes to our books.

It’s All Amazon’s Fault
In the world of traditional publishing, publishers actually saved you a ton of time with something called a rejection letter. It was short, painful and private. No one else in the world needed to know that you just had your kiester handed to you because you were not deemed good enough to have your words committed to paper. Over the years, you collected these things like parking tickets and continued writing till you actually produced something that a publisher would accept. You were, according to these great and powerful Wizards of Oz, good enough.

Now it’s actually worse, and it’s all Amazon’s fault. Indie publishing has made it possible to put whatever you want out there in no time at all. Never mind that the cover is cheesy and the text is filled with mistakes and sloppy prose. Never mind that you rushed to finish the last third of the book. Just hit the Publish button and you’re golden! Now the entire world can—well, not reject you, of course. No, it can do something much worse. It can ignore you. Ouch.

The Thrill of Failing
It’s precisely because I am planning to publish my new zombie novel this summer that I am plagued by thoughts of inadequacy. During the daylight hours, I go happily about my business, revising my manuscript, finalizing the book cover and experimenting with eBook formatting. But it’s at night when The Doubt hits me. And it hits hard, son, let me tell you. Sure, I’ve published a number of short stories that have gotten some lovely reviews. But this is a novel we’re talking about. It’s the majors, and I don’t know if I’m good enough.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Remember that one? I keep telling myself that I need to try this. The book, regardless of how well or poorly it’s received, will give me the courage to try another, and another. And that’s a writer’s life. You keep at it because you have no choice.

Nevertheless, failing still sucks but it’s instructive. No one ever does a post mortem on their successes—only the failures. And with failure, you pretty much have a nice blueprint of what not to do next time.

Stay the Course
So what do you do? You keep going. One thing that’s important to remember is to keep your doubts and fears from sabotaging your current efforts. Writing is something you have to work at every day. And every day, if you’re doing it correctly, you get a little better. This is what I tell myself.

Here’s a final thought. There’s nothing more thrilling than thinking you’re going to fail and succeeding wildly against all odds. That’s an experience worth having. Just make sure that whatever it is you’re slaving away ends up with a better title than Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter. Come to think of it, the right title may be the key to the whole thing.

 

4 Obstacles to Self-Publishing Success

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Are you one of those authors who keeps meaning to get to publishing your own books, but somehow never manages to actually get all the way to the finish line?

Hey, you’re not alone, it happens to lots of people.

Gathering information from many talks with authors, it seems to me there are 4 big obstacles that trip authors up, and that get in the way of their goals.

What are they?

  • Rejection–Thinking that you’re just not good enough, that people will hate your book—and you—because you’re actually a no-talent hacker with no business publishing your own book.
  • Worry–Feeling overwhelmed by how big the project is, that you will never be able to do it all.
  • Fear–Feeling that no one will notice your book and no one will buy your book and the people that do read it will hate it and write bad things about you on the internet.
  • Confusion–Becoming so totally confused about just what to do and where to start that you never end up doing anything.

Let’s face it, these are powerful human emotions. Putting our work out into the world can bring up lots of resistance and make us question the value of our message, the quality of our writing, and the passion we bring to our work.

That’s why I hate to see authors trapped in these emotions, because they just keep you stuck.

New Video: “Self-Publishing Mistakes, Screw-Ups and Disasters”

I’ve got another video for you that addresses this subject head on, and suggests ways you can get over the traps if you happen to be caught in one at the moment.

In the video I also look at some common mistakes new self-publishers make, and go over some of my own classic goofs just to reassure you that even professionals can screw up big time.

At the end of the video there’s a story I call “The Most Important Book of All,” and I think you’ll get something out of it.

It describes some of the things that happened to me when I first overcame my own resistance and succeeded in publishing a book I knew there was a need for.

Getting that book out into the world wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t cheap either. But I had no idea when I published it just how much it would change my life.

I would have to say that nothing was the same afterwards as it was before.

But better yet, go over and have a look at this video. It runs about 21 minutes and it’s packed with content.

Here’s the link: Self-Publishing Mistakes, Screw-ups and Disasters

If it brings up issues for you (I just watched it again, and it brought up issues for me!) leave me a comment below the video. I’d love to hear from you.

Here’s the link one more time, this will be 21 minutes well spent: Self-Publishing Mistakes, Screw-ups and Disasters

 

This is a reprint of a post that originally appeared on Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer.

Decrying the Evil Empire of Publishing While Piloting One of Its Battle Cruisers?

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This post, by Bob Mayer, originally appeared on his Write on the River site on 4/2/13.

Amazon, it appears, is the Death Star, the evil empire, that is devouring the publishing universe. At least according to a lot of people who are publicly proclaiming it. That makes Jeff Bezos the Emperor and, hmm, let’s pick Jon Fine, as Darth Vader, because he’s always out there at writers’ events representing Amazon. Behind that long hair and charming smile, lies his true, twisted face. We won’t even get into where he hides his light saber.

The recent Amazon purchase of Goodreads has rattled all these ‘rebels’ out of the encampments and have them polishing up their swords and powering up their own light sabers to . . .

Uh wait. Actually, when you check, you find that most, if not all, of these people, whether they be authors or work for publishers, have books on Amazon for sale. Huh? Are they then not part of Amazon? I mean, Amazon has to sell something. Right? And if these same people are supplying that product and making money off it, aren’t they either Imperial Storm Troopers (the little ones, you know, let’s say a midlist author at a trad publisher who generates probably 60-80% of her eBook royalties and 35% of her print royalties via Amazon) or piloting an Imperial Battle Cruiser (let’s say a Big 6 Publisher that sells a considerable number of books through Amazon, both digital and print, and oh yeah, audio).

How can both be true? How can Scott Turow use his bully pulpit as president of the Authors Guild to decry Amazon over and over again, yet still sell his books on Amazon? I think there’s a word for that.

Hypocritical?

I understand that its Scott’s publisher who sends the book metadata to be sold on Amazon and not Scott himself, but if Amazon is truly the Death Star, why is everyone feeding it?

I’m all for everyone having an opinion. I remember Barnes & Noble when it was the Evil Empire destroying indie bookstores. I also remember B&N when it was one store on 18th in New York City that I visited on Sundays growing up in da’ Bronx. I remember in 1994 when there wasn’t an Amazon. I remember the early part of the last decade as the music business imploded because of digital and NY blithely stuck to business as usual. Now it’s imploding and people are crying FOUL! Not preparing for the future isn’t your competition being unfair, it’s running your business poorly.

 

Read the rest of the post on Write on the River.

Publishers Behaving Badly, Part… I’ve Lost Count

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This post, by David Gaughran, originally appeared on his Let’s Get Digital site on 3/13/13.

There seems to be a view in certain self-congratulatory circles that publishers have finally got to grips with the digital revolution, that they have weathered the fiercest part of the storm, and that they are well-placed now not just to survive, but to thrive.

There are innumerable problems with that view, of course, but today I’d like to focus on one core truth of this brave new world that publishers have failed to grasp.

Namely, there are only two essential components to publishing in the digital era: the writer and the reader.

All of the old middlemen – agents, publishers, distributors, retailers – have to justify their cut, as the writer can now bypass them and go direct to readers. The only middlemen (IMO) currently making a compelling case for their cut are retailers. Self-publishers are more than happy to fork over 30% to Amazon to access their ever-expanding customer base.

Publishers seem determined to move in the opposite direction: making the proposition of publishing with them less attractive rather than more attractive, reducing advances, worsening contract terms, and treating writers as marks rather than partners – despite whatever guff accompanies the launch of their latest initiatives.

The recent actions of two of the largest trade publishers have drawn criticism from all across the writing community – not just self-publishers – and are thus not as easily dismissed as the rantings of a jaundiced indie zealot.

Let’s start with Random House; the rest can wait in line.

Digital-First Imprints Put Authors Last

By now, you have probably heard of the scandalous terms Random House offered authors via its new digital-first imprints – Hydra, Alibi, Flirt & Loveswept – before being forced to revise some of the terms in an embarrassing climb-down.

If you are already familiar with this part of the story, you can skip to Problems Still Remain below. For those who missed it, or want a quick refresher, here’s a recap.

The original terms offered by Random House were:

  1. No advance.
  2. Assignment of all rights and subsidiary rights for the lifetime of the copyright.
  3. No meaningful reversion clause, meaning you’ll never get any of these rights back – even the ones they don’t use – unless Random House deign to return them.
  4. A 50% net royalty rate. Which sounds okay until you realise that “net” doesn’t just mean what the publisher receives from the retailer, but that amount minus all the costs of publishing and promoting the book.

Watchdog group Author Beware broke the story, and a few days later John Scalzi eviscerated Random House in this excellent post. (The latter especially is worth reading.)

It should be obvious to all of you why you should never sign anything with terms like this. But just to hammer the point home, it combines the worst of both worlds: no print distribution (but you give up your print rights), no advance, you sign your rights away forever, and you have no reasonable means of getting them reverted at any point.

 

Read the rest of the post on Let’s Get Digital.

The Public Library: Historic Artifact or Adaptive Success? (infographic)

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This infographic and accompanying introduction originally appeared on CityTownInfo on 3/28/13 and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

Since the founding of the first public library in the U.S. in 1731, libraries have provided a conduit to knowledge for the general populace. Toward the end of the last century, however, the Internet dramatically changed how and where we access information.

The Web has introduced virtually limitless access to information. With this alternative to traditional print media, public libraries are facing new challenges: online resources allow people instant access to books, magazines, job information and applications, health information and online classes. So how do libraries plan to continue engaging communities? In the face of new technologies, libraries are adapting to a new reality.

Eighty-one percent of American adults use the Internet and almost as many people agree that free computer and internet access (including Wi-Fi) are very important services that libraries offer. In fact, 62 percent of libraries are the sole provider of computers and Wi-Fi for free in their community. Libraries also offer technology assistance, help with social services applications, tutoring and advice for job-seeking patrons.

Over the past decade, public libraries have been increasing in number, but the growth hasn’t kept up with the population. Between 2000 and 2009, public libraries increased by 1.7 percent, but the national population increased by 11.7 percent. Overall, the digital age has ushered in radically changing media on offer at libraries–San Antonio, Texas, for example, is planning to open a public library without books this fall. Instead, it will have computers, tablets, laptops and e-readers with preloaded titles. While the bookless library has been attempted in the U.S. before, in 2002, it didn’t last: patrons eventually asked for actual books.

So how are public libraries currently being used and are they here to stay? This infographic examines the current use of public libraries and challenges to their preeminence as providers (and symbols) of knowledge.

Sources:

Pew Research Center, “Demographics of Internet Users”, 2012
American Library Association, “State of America’s Libraries Report”, 2012
Institute of Museum and Library Services, Public Libraries Survey (Fiscal Year 2009), 2011
NPR, “A Launch of the Bookless Library”, 2013

For a complete list of sources, please view the infographic:

The public library: Historic artifact or adaptive success
Courtesy of: CityTownInfo.com

Why Do We Hate Certain Words?

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This post, by Matthew J.X. Malady, originally appeared on Slate on 4/1/13.

The curious phenomenon of word aversion.

Publetariat Editor’s Note: this post contains both strong language and numerous instances of words many people hate.

The George Saunders story “Escape From Spiderhead,” included in his much praised new book Tenth of December, is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart. The sprawling, futuristic tale delves into several potentially unnerving topics: suicide, sex, psychotropic drugs. It includes graphic scenes of self-mutilation. It employs the phrases “butt-squirm,” “placental blood,” and “thrusting penis.” At one point, Saunders relates a conversation between two characters about the application of medicinal cream to raw, chafed genitals.

Early in the story, there is a brief passage in which the narrator, describing a moment of postcoital amorousness, says, “Everything seemed moist, permeable, sayable.” This sentence doesn’t really stand out from the rest—in fact, it’s one of the less conspicuous sentences in the story. But during a recent reading of “Escape From Spiderhead” in Austin, Texas, Saunders says he encountered something unexpected. “I’d texted a cousin of mine who was coming with her kids (one of whom is in high school) just to let her know there was some rough language,” he recalls. “Afterwards she said she didn’t mind fu*k, but hated—wait for it—moist. Said it made her a little physically ill. Then I went on to Jackson, read there, and my sister Jane was in the audience—and had the same reaction. To moist.”

Mr. Saunders, say hello to word aversion.

It’s about to get really moist in here. But first, some background is in order. The phenomenon of word aversion—seemingly pedestrian, inoffensive words driving some people up the wall—has garnered increasing attention over the past decade or so. In a recent post on Language Log, University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Mark Liberman defined the concept as “a feeling of intense, irrational distaste for the sound or sight of a particular word or phrase, not because its use is regarded as etymologically or logically or grammatically wrong, nor because it’s felt to be over-used or redundant or trendy or non-standard, but simply because the word itself somehow feels unpleasant or even disgusting.”

So we’re not talking about hating how some people say laxadaisical instead of lackadaisical or wanting to vigorously shake teenagers who can’t avoid using the word like between every other word of a sentence. If you can’t stand the word tax because you dislike paying taxes, that’s something else, too. (When recently asked about whether he harbored any word aversions, Harvard University cognition and education professor Howard Gardner offered up webinar, noting that these events take too much time to set up, often lack the requisite organization, and usually result in “a singularly unpleasant experience.” All true, of course, but that sort of antipathy is not what word aversion is all about.)

Word aversion is marked by strong reactions triggered by the sound, sight, and sometimes even the thought of certain words, according to Liberman. “Not to the things that they refer to, but to the word itself,” he adds. “The feelings involved seem to be something like disgust.”

 

Read the rest of the post on Slate.

Killing Off A Character

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This post, by LJ Sellers, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

I killed my first recurring character recently, and it still haunts me. She wasn’t particularly popular, but the manner of her death was shocking. The ending made my beta readers cry for my protagonist, but they said they loved it. And so did my publisher. So I crossed my fingers and let it go to press.

Still, I knew it was a risk. Readers complain loudly when writers kill characters. They post negative reviews and ratings and often claim they’ll never read another book by the author. Some even follow through.

Television writers kill characters even more often than novelists do. Have you seen the third season of Downton Abbey? Viewers were infuriated. Or the last season of Grey’s Anatomy? Ouch!

Why do authors do it? For several creative reasons and possibly one egocentric rationale. First, the self-centered reason. Literary experts say if you’re not willing to kill a character, then you’re not a real writer. They say you lack the courage to be realistic and daring. So killing a character is a challenge that many writers feel compelled to experience.

But that’s not why I did it. If a character’s full story arc has been told, and there is nothing left for that person to do, then killing him or her is essential for the series. It’s only fair to readers to cut the dead weight and allow the story arc of other characters to grow and take new paths. Sometimes a death at the end of one story is the best way to set up a new story that begins with an emotional punch. Also, the action in the climax is often so intense that if no one dies, the story doesn’t feel realistic.

Another reason—which TV writers cite as their main motivation—is that killing a character creates uncertainty. Once readers/viewers realize that anyone could die, that quiet dread ratchets up the suspense.

Which is why readers and viewers keep coming back to a series even after someone they love has been dispatched. Many fans will rant and rave, but eventually they’ll accept the development and find themselves ready for more. Only now, their anticipation will be greater than ever.

This pattern is probably truer (safer) for television than novels. Book lovers get more attached to their mainstays, and therefore more upset by unexpected deaths. When you kill a recurring fictional character, you will lose some readers forever.

What is the payoff for novelists? The satisfaction of telling the story the way they envision it. The freedom to take the series or protagonist in a new direction. Maybe even more important—the rush of taking a risk and the confidence that comes with surviving it.

So in Rules of Crime, book seven of the Detective Jackson series, I finally killed a character and I made my protagonist suffer for it. So far, most of my faithful readers have supported—even loved—the decision. But not everyone. I just hope the few who are disappointed will come back to find out what happens next. Book eight is written, and I’ve made the development pay off in an a rewarding way.

What about you? Have you abandoned an author for knocking off a favorite character? Do you give TV writers more slack than novelists? Tell me what you think [ in the comments section on the original post ].

Happenings in the World of the Warrior Scribe

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Halfway through March already? Seriously, what the shit, time? It’s been a strange and hectic year so far, for many reasons, but through it all I’m steadfastly, some would say stubbornly, persisting with being a writer. Some might even suggest I was bull-headedly persisting and yes, bull-headedly is most definitely a word.

I’ve been working on several short fiction projects, and I’m cautiously proud of the stories I’ve been turning out. There’s horror, straight fantasy, science fiction and cross-bred mutants of all three happening at the moment. Today I’ll be working on a horror story about a priest facing a small child’s demons. Cliche, you’re thinking? Well, fuck you. Wait till you read it, then you can call it a cliche. Personally, I think I’m playing very cleverly with old tropes. Of course, we always think we’re clever, or we would have given up this fool’s game a long time ago.

Sometimes, though, we get some positive feedback. Take the novella that I’m collaborating on with David Wood. It’s called Dark Rite, it’s a kind of horror/thriller mashup and we’re really quite proud of it. It’s around 40,000 words, which is right at the top end of the novella range, almost into short novel territory, so it’s a meaty read. We’re pretty close to a final draft and are currently waiting on some feedback from some very generous early readers. And we’re lucky, because those early readers are some luminary figures in the world of thrillers and horror. I’ll reveal more when we get all the feedback and make the final tweaks before putting the book up for publication. But so far, the feedback has been very encouraging. It’s been called “fantastic” and “very Stephen King” by one person whose opinion I really respect. You can imagine the little happy dance I did when I read that. As a horror writer, is there much higher praise than being compared to Stephen King?

So while we continually pound our aching head against the wall of literary recognition, trying to get better, trying to get published, it’s nice to get that kind of feedback from time to time. It helps to ease the self-inflicted wounds. Balm for the weeping gashes of self-doubt that stripe our soul. And all that bollocks.

I’m also still working on the next two novels. One is out in the world looking for a home, the next is finished in early drafts. Once this last short story is polished up, redrafting that book will be my primary focus. Never any rest here at the Warrior Scribe Word Mills. And that’s the only way to succeed – keep doing it, keep getting better.

 

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s Warrior Scribe.