A Writer's Life

What Life Was Like For Midlist Authors Before The Kindle

Overcoming Adversity

The Los Angeles Times ran a feature today on Peter Winkler, who regular readers of this blog will reocognize as someone who has frequently commented on posts here over the years. He's severely disabled by arthritis and writes using a chopstick. He recently completed a biography of Dennis Hopper.

In the virtual world, Winkler roams free. He blogs. He comments. He write articles about film.

In the physical world, he increasingly is trapped — dependent on his sister and a long, red plastic chopstick.

Rheumatoid arthritis has battered him for 46 of his 55 years.

His neck won't turn. His head is pitched down, chin to chest. His elbow and wrist joints are so fixed in place, he cannot touch his face.

Sitting up in bed, he can no longer extend his arms far enough to place his fingertips on the keyboard of the MacBook Pro propped on a lap desk across his thighs.

Instead, he braces the chopstick between several fingers on his right hand and uses it to tap, tap, tap one key after another.

It's not so bad, he says. He's gotten pretty fast, and anyway, "I was always a two-finger typist."

Keep that in mind next time you are tempted to complain about how difficult it is for you to write. I know that I will. 

(As a side note, I wonder why Peter doesn't use dictation software, like Dragon Naturally Speaking, rather than use the chopstick?)

Ebook Sales Are Skyrocketing, Paperback books Are Plummeting

According to figures released today by the Association of American Publishers, so far this year ebook sales are up 167% while paperbacks have plunged 64% and hardcovers have dropped 25%.  It's a safe prediction that the holiday season will create a sharp spike in ebook sales and an even steeper drop in paperback and hardcover sales. It won't be long now until the mass market paperback becomes virtually extinct.

Vote for Carleton Eastlake for WGA Board

My friend Carleton Eastlake is an incumbent running for re-election to the Writers Guild of America board of directors. He has done an exceptional job on behalf of writers and, if you are a WGA member, I hope you will not only vote for him, but will endorse him as well.  I have. You can read his compelling and thoughtful candidate's statement and endorse him by going here.

Books Without Borders

The demise of Borders, though widely expected, is sending shockwaves through the publishing industry that authors will undoubtedly be feeling in their wallets, as the Wall Street Journal reports.

When you lose literally miles of bookshelves, it's going to have an impact," said David Young, chief executive ofLagardère SCA's Hachette Book Group, which Borders owed $36.9 million at the time of its bankruptcy filing. "I hope other retailers will now step up and make offers for what they consider to be the prime sites," Mr. Young said. "It's a tragedy Borders didn't make it through."

The loss of Borders may also make it more difficult for new writers to be discovered. "The liquidation of Borders is an irreplaceable loss of a big part of the book-discovery ecosystem," said Michael Norris, a senior analyst at Simba Information, a unit of MarketResearch.com "Thousands of people whose job consisted of talking up and selling books will eventually being doing something else, and that's bad for authors, agents, and everyone associated with the value chain in books."

Hardcover and paperback book sales are bound to take a huge hit...and publishers are going to pass on the pain by offering lower advances. This is bound to drive more authors, particularly those in the ever-widening mid-list, to self-publishing. It will also have, oddly enough, a negative impact on at least one e-reading platform -- the Kobo, which was Borders' answer to the Kindle and Nook (though the Kobo remains the device of choice for Canada's Chapters chain of book superstores).

The liquidation of the 400 remaining Borders stores could start as early as Friday.

Thriller Breasts

A few years back, I remember reading that Homeland Security was inviting thriller writers over to give them advice on what plots terrorists might be cooking up. The notion was widely lampooned but it was probably a very smart idea, because as author Lew Perdue points out, when it comes to terror plots, he's often been way ahead of the curve, especially when it comes to killer breasts: 

The Obama Administration’s recent warning about terrorists using breast implant bombsreminds me that over my 35 years of writing thrillers, I’ve frequently developed ideas — including explosive breast implants — that once seemed preposterous, outlandish or impossible — but which have either come true or entered the realm of the dangerously likely.

[...]About two year ago, I outlined a thriller around women who had implants filled with a liquid explosive that does not require a separate detonator to explode. Nitroglycerine is an example one of these, but is less stable and not as powerful as alternative formulations available. [...]I had stunningly attractive women with breasts surgically enhanced to Brobdingnagian proportions, which of course, require commensurate structural support including a substantial underwire superstructure.

 

The detonation mechanism consisted of two parts, both cleverly constructed to identically mimic bra underwiring. The actual detonator circuit was contained in side the implant was a simple variation on a spark gap. This was capacitance linked to external wiring in the bra.  The connection as I designed it in the outline was a bit like those capacitance switches that work when you touch them with your finger. No direct connection is needed.

 

Similarly, the electrical charge to initiate the detonation in the breast implant bomb doesn’t need a direct connection. Just the closeness through the skin between the detonator and the electrical charge to set off the explosive. The electrical charge in my thriller outline came from a small netbook which had been rewired to route the power leads of the USB port to the earplug port. Very large capacitance charges can be achieved by gradual charging. But the advantage of a capacitor is that t can discharge all its energy almost instantly.

 

By bringing the slightly modified earplug near the implanted detonator wire and pressing the “PLAY” button on the netbook’s music player would detonate the implants.

 

Literary Agents Reinventing Themselves

With the publishing industry undergoing cataclysmic changes, and with self-publishing now a viable option for authors, it's only natural that literary agents are scrambling to position themselves.

How are they going to make money in this new publishing business? How are they going to be relevant?

One way is to reinvent themselves. Instead of just finding clients publishers and negotiating the deals,  they are now branching out into publishing books themselves... or helping their clients self-publish by taking on the management and business side of the business (finding cover artists, copyeditors, tracking royalties, etc) ...in exchange for a 15% commission on books sold. Here's how the Dystel & Goderich Literary Agency is doing it:

 We have a project manager whose job it is to coordinate, advise, and make sure that the process goes smoothly with minimal work on the part of the author.  This, because we want our authors to write, not have to engage in a 47-e-mail exchange with someone about font size.   Everything is subject to the author’s approval.

Which brings up the question posed by several of you, both here and on Joe Konrath’s blog: what are you people doing to earn that 15% commission?  Pretty much what we do now to earn that 15% commission.  Our commitment to this is more than just uploading and watching the dollars trickle in.  In addition to all we do as agents, managing self-published properties will be part of our job: updating metadata, copy, next-book excerpts, etc.  It’s not just vague managerial duties, but concrete tasks that we will be adding to our other duties.

Over on the Writer Beware blog, there's an informative, thoughtful, and remarkably civil discussion going on about this new development, one that Victoria Strauss sees as a troubling conflict of interest. Here's just one of her many concerns:

 If an agency can publish a client's book itself, will it try as hard to market the book to traditional publishers? Will it give up sooner on a book that doesn't sell right away? Where and how will the line be drawn between "this book still has potential markets" and "this book is tapped out?" How much--unconsciously or otherwise--will the agency influence clients' decisions on which publishing route to take? According to Dystel & Goderich's announcement, "what we are going to do is to facilitate e-publishing for those of our clients who decide that they want to go this route, after consultation and strategizing about whether they should try traditional publishing first or perhaps simply set aside the current book and move on to the next." (My bolding.) Does this mean that the agency may take on clients whose manuscripts are never marketed to other publishers at all?

 But in the comments section, author Barry Eisler, who is married to an agent, and Joe Konrath, whose agents just announced their new self-publishing intiative, have  jumpd in to explain in detail why they see this as a natural evolution for agents as advocates for their authors. Barry says, in part:

I think you're defining the author/agent relationship premise too narrowly. Most fundamentally, the purpose -- the end -- of the agent is to help authors get their books to the greatest number of readers and achieve the greatest possible commercial and literary success. The means by which this end has traditionally been achieved is a sale to a legacy publisher. Because the "sale to a publisher" route has until quite recently been the only means to the "getting the book to the greatest number of readers and achieve the greatest possible commercial and literary success" end, it's easy to conflate the two. But just as railroads were not in the railroad business, but rather were in the transportation business, agents are not in the "selling to publishers" business, but rather are in the "helping their authors reach the greatest number of readers and achieve the greatest possible commercial and literary success" business. Agents who miss this fundamental distinction are making the same mistake the railroad companies made, and will achieve similar results.

It's discussion well worth reading.  

I'm sure you're wondering where I weigh in on this.

I agree with both Victoria... and with Barry & Joe.

I think it's a big conflict-of-interest when an agency becomes a publisher...creating a situation that's rife with ethical problems and plenty of opportunities for the authors to be exploited and screwed.

However, I think that's very different from what agencies like Dystel & Goderich appear to be offering.  

If I am reading it right, they're offering to take all the headaches out of your self-publishing venture by dealing with the cover artists, copyeditors, formatters, and sales platforms for you.

In other words, you write, we'll handle as much of the business side of it as you'd like us to. You'll still be making all the decisions and writing all the checks...we'll just shoulder all the time-consuming, day-to-day managerial work. 

I don't see a conflict-of-interest in that scenario. It's your self-publishing venture, they're just managing it for you in exchange for a commission (I think 15% for that service is way too high, but that's another discussion).

 (Pictured: Victoria Strauss and Barry Eisler, who photo was taken at Bouchercon 2010 by Mark Coggins)

Just One More Thing...

I wrote about Peter Falk, and his portrayal of Lt. Columbo, for the Wall Street Journal today. I said, in part:

Before Peter Falk came along with his iconic portrayal of Lt. Columbo, TV detectives were never people like us. For the most part, they were a smug and self-assured bunch, comfortable in their mental, moral, and physical attributes and their obvious superiority over not only the bad guys, but everybody else, too.

They were smooth and elegant, like Gene Barry’s millionaire homicide cop Amos Burke, or stalwart do-gooders like Jack Webb’s by-the-book Joe Friday, or handsome tough guys like Burt Reynolds’s Dan August. We watched them because they were better versions of ourselves, wish-fulfillment caricatures who didn’t have our imperfections, our doubts, our anxieties. They weren’t so much characters as they were a means of escape from our dreary lives.

But we watched…no, we adored…Peter Falk’s Columbo because he was us:  an everyman, working class, messy, and imperfect, dealing with the physical and domestic woes we know so well, and constantly underestimated by wealthier, better-educated people as a result.

 

 

Shaken for Japan

Naomi Hirahara, Brett Battles, Wendy Hornsby, Cara Black and Timothy Hallinan are just a few of the amazing authors who've contributed stories to SHAKEN: STORIES OF JAPAN, an ebook anthology that benefits the  Japan America Society of Southern California's Japan relief fund. You won't find an easier or more enjoyable way to contribute money to a great cause.

NY Publishers Terrified by Self-Pubbed Authors

The Wall Street Journal reports that cheap ebooks from self-published authors are making NY publishers wake up in a cold sweat...a notion that self-published authors used to fantasize about and that I've scoffed at (and ruthlessly ridiculed) for years.

But the advent of the Kindle, combined with Amazon  offering their sales platform to all-comers for free, has changed everything. Now that self-pubbed  fantasy has come true in a big, big way:

"[Amazon is] training their customers away from brand name authors and are instead creating visibility for self-published titles," one senior publishing executive who asked not to be identified, says of Amazon.

As digital sales surge, publishers are casting a worried eye towards the previously scorned self-published market. Unlike five years ago, when self-published writers rarely saw their works on the same shelf as the industry's biggest names, the low cost of digital publishing, coupled with Twitter and other social-networking tools, has enabled previously unknown writers to make a splash

Now it's actually possible for an author nobody heard of to become a millonaire within just a matter of months. I'm not exaggerating. Everyone talks about Amanda Hocking...but perhaps the most astonishing success story of all is John Locke.

Mr. Locke, who published his first paperback two years ago at age 58, says he decided to jump into digital publishing in March 2010 after studying e-book pricing.

"When I saw that highly successful authors were charging $9.99 for an e-book, I thought that if I can make a profit at 99 cents, I no longer have to prove I'm as good as them," says Mr. Locke. "Rather, they have to prove they are ten times better than me."

Locke earned $126,000 on 369,000 sales on Amazon in March alone. That's a huge uptick from the 75,000 he sold in January and the 1300 he sold in November.

Wait, let's think about that some more. 

John Locke went from selling 1300 books to 369,000 in four months. 

Holy.

Shit.

Anyone who thinks the e-book market has peaked isn't paying attention....and any midlist author who signs another pissant three-book contract with a NY publisher (or any publisher) should check themselves into a mental institution right away. 

Don't look for Locke to follow Amanda Hocking's footsteps and take a NY publishing deal. He says he's not interested, though he has signed up with a high-powered agent to field movie offers and deal with foreign publishers. She sums up the whole ebook marketplace very nicely: "This is a Wild West of a world," she says.

Barnes & Noble 2.0

The Nook might just save Barnes & Noble if they commit to becoming a Nookstore instead of a Bookstore...making ebooks the primary focus of their brick-and-mortar stores as well as their website.  That's the thesis of an interesting article from CNN Money. 

"Barnes & Noble didn't get into this market very early, but when they got into this, they got into this very smart," says Forrester research analyst James McQuivey about the company's ereader. "They went in with with both feet, quickly got a device on the market as opposed to picking someone to partner up with like Borders did, and when the firestorm in 2010 hit, they already had their device ready to go. Borders did not." (Pop quiz: Do you even know the name of the Borders ereader? It's called the Kobo. And it's nowon clearance for $60 at Borders stores that are liquidating.)

In fact, McQuivey thinks Barnes & Noble has a better than 50% chance of making the switch to digital if it becomes even more aggressive about its Nook hardware, software, ebook and accessory business. And there is room for growth. Based on a Goldman Sachs analyst report, the Nook business is on a hockey-stick growth curve, with sales going from $62 million in 2009 (the year the device launched) to an estimated $1.163 billion for 2012. Meanwhile, the book business -- sales at brick and mortar locations -- will decrease, according to the same estimates, from $4.37 billion this year to $3.95 billion for the company's fiscal year 2012.

In other words, the day is fast approaching when ebooks will drive B&Ns sales and paper books will be little more than colorful decor in their Nookstores. Or, as the article concludes:

Regardless of the path executives take, the Barnes & Noble of the future (if there is one, of course) will probably look nothing like it does today. The company could even choose to drop the name altogether and let Nook become the consumer-facing brand.

Publishing As We Knew It Is Called...what?

In the midst of the big e-revolution in publishing, nobody has quite figured out how to characterize publishing as we knew it, way back in the day (2010). Terms like "traditional publishers," "dead tree publishers," "NY publishers," and now "legacy publishers" have been thrown around, but none of them has stuck (though "legacy publishers" seems to gaining traction lately). How do you think we should refer in our discussions of the business to what we used to think of, in a general sense, as "publishers" and "publishing"? 

More Eisler vs. Hocking

There's a very interesting conversation between authors Barry Eisler and Amanda Hocking on literary agent Ted Weinstein's blog today.  Hocking kicked off the interview by sharing some eye-opening numbers:

I have self-published eight full-length novels and one novella since March or April of 2010. I thought it was April 15th, but Amazon emailed me on my "anniversary" and said it was March 15th. I've sold somewhere over a million copies in that time (it was 1,030,768 when I last added up totals last Tuesday). I don't know the exact amount of money I've earned, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 - $2 million. 

[...]I also have paperbacks made through CreateSpace, and those are available on Amazon and my blog. My paper sales are minor when compared to my total. I think it's around 10,000 copies sold in paperback, compared to over a million in ebooks. The royalties I'm getting on my paperback sales are much smaller than my ebook royalties, too. 

As for the St. Martin's deal, I haven't actually signed anything, and I don't know the exact terms of it. What I do know is that the offer was over $2 million for four books world English rights, and the royalty rate is on line with the industry average. 

She went on to say that she formatted books and did the covers herself but hired freelance editors to proof them. She also did all of her own social networking PR. Only recently has she brought on an artist, an assistant and an accountant. She has agents handling the sales of foreign and subrights.

My friend Barry wasn't quite as forthcoming as Hocking about his sales figures and earnings (he's an ex-CIA agent, after all)...

Let's see, eight books total, six with Putnam, the most recent two with Ballantine. Off the top of my head, I don't know how many units sold total (hardback, paperback, digital). How much I've earned... also a little hard to say. Some of the contracts have earned out, some not, and there are foreign sales in at least 20 different languages. But the advances have been six and seven figures and I've been making a good living writing for the last decade or so.

Unlike Hocking, he's been at this a lot longer. And he's had the benefit of publishers handling most of the tasks that she took on herself. He says:

I have a circle of family and friends who are all talented editors, for example, and I would never release a book before hearing from each of them. On cover design, I've been consulted, with different results with different publishers. On publicity and marketing, same. I guess the short way of explaining my experience on working with legacy publishers on various packaging, marketing, and publicity matters would be to say, these are areas I've long wanted to be fully in charge of. I've always carried a lot of the weight when it comes to marketing and promotion, and have been disappointed more than once by my publishers' packaging decisions, so the way I see it, going indie won't represent much work that I haven't been doing myself anyway, plus I'll get to make my own decisions. Plus for me, I think indie will be more lucrative.

A big reason behind Barry's decision to leave "legacy" publishing for self-publishing was the money. It just made more financial sense to go out on his own now.

In a typical legacy deal, the author gets 14.9% of the retail price of a digital book. So when my of my publishers sells one of my digital titles at $9.99, I get $1.49 of that. When the same title is self-published at $2.99, I keep 70% of the retail price, or about $2.10. And if fact, I plan on pricing my first self-published novel, The Detachment, at $4.99, which would mean a $3.50 per unit royalty for me. So I don't have to sell as many self-published books as I did legacy; in fact, I can sell far fewer and still come out ahead.

A big reason behind Hocking's move in the other direction was distribution and name recognition. She wants to reach a larger audience, and become a household name, something she thinks a publisher is better positioned to do for her than she can for herself. She wrote on her blog:

I am fully aware that I stand a chance of losing money on this deal compared to what I could make self-publishing.

I honestly didn't do this for money. But let's not forget that as much money as I've made, James Patterson made $70 million between June 2010 and July 2010. Legacy houses (is that what we're calling them now?) have made a lot of authors very rich.

So what do I actually want out of this deal? What do I hope to gain?

Career stability. As an author, I'll never really have one. Each book I come out with could bomb and could be the one that turns readers off me forever. Any day, my books could just stop selling. And I know that going with a house isn't going to change that. Any author can stop making money any day.

James Patterson has a book out now that has incredibly low reviews, some of the lowest I've seen for any book, and that book is still selling like crazy, and I can find it Target and Walmart. Even the sequel to the book, which the reviews say is even twice as awful as the original, is selling like crazy. Why? Because James Patterson wrote it. (Or more accurately, because his name is on the cover).

I want that. Not the writing bad books thing. I'll always strive to write a product that people enjoy. But I want to be a household name. I want to be the impulse buy that people make when they're waiting in an airport because they know my name.

That, I think, is as close to career stability as I can get. And that's why I took the deal.

Clearly, these are two different authors at two very different places in their careers who, from where I am sitting, have made the right moves for their unique situations.

Barry has been at this awhile and has been doing well. From what I can tell, Barry isn't after Patterson-esque ubiquity, he just wants to make more money from his work than he's being offer from publishers right now. And I am willing to bet that he will, even if he sells far fewer copies than he would have before. 

Hocking is just starting out at a time when publishing is undergoing seismic changes. Beyond being very talented, Hocking is obviously one very sharp young woman. She knows what she wants and what it will cost her to get it. And she's okay with that. But some chide her for it, like Macy Halford at the New Yorker. She says: 

Even though Hocking seems to care about quality, her desire for Patterson-style ubiquity is troubling. She seems to think of herself as a corporation in a way that few writers do, speaking of herself as a commodity with complete ease—she understands that her blogging and tweeting selves are marketing tools, but she doesn’t seem either to mind or to view them as entirely separate from her writing self. 

Which is part of the secret to her success.  What writer out there wouldn't want Patterson's ubiquity? Or for that matter, Stephen King's or Michael Connelly's or Nora Robert's? Kudos to Hocking for acknowledging it and for leveraging her success in self-publishing so shrewdly that she might actually achieve her goal.

There's a lot to learn from Eisler and Hocking. The big lesson? There isn't just one approach to publishing any more. You now can, and must, find your own path that fits your talent, your skills, your experience, your goals and your potential. 

Eisler & Hocking

The news this week that Barry Eisler snubbed a $500,000 publishing deal to self-publish and that self-pub phenom Amanda Hocking is negotiating a $1 million+ deal with a publishing company has created a lot of discussion among authors, agents, editors and pundits. Even Hocking herself has weighed in with her reasoning:

I'm writer. I want to be a writer. I do not want to spend 40 hours a week handling emails, formatting covers, finding editors, etc. Right now, being me is a full time corporation. As I said before in my post - Some Things That Need to be Said - I am spending so much time on things that are not writing.

 

I like writing. I even like marketing, especially when it comes to interacting with readers. And I don't mind editing. I just don't want to run my corporation, because that takes away from writing and everything else that I actually enjoy doing.

Booksquare offered some interesting analysis, crediting both authors for making shrewd moves based on their unique situations in the publishing universe. 

Eisler and Hocking are making the right choices, but, if you were to corner me in a bar and ask me which author is following the right path right now, I’d say Eisler.

He’s taking a riskier path, for sure, and there is no guarantee. His history suggests he has some talent when comes to calculated risks. And while he’s burned some publishing bridges, he also has a track record in the industry.

Hocking, however, is more of a publishing dark horse. She’s done the indie thing amazingly well. I cannot over-emphasize how critical this is, and how well she’s done it. But there is a gap between indie publishing (especially self-publishing, without a lot of professional editorial input) and corporate publishing.

The biggest challenge, and the reason I’m putting my money (virtual because the husband hates it when I bet cat food dollars) on Eisler is that the publisher who signs Amanda Hocking today will likely not have a book on the shelf before 2012, more likely 2013. Note my nouns.

The Hocking zeitgeist is right now. Her audience is right now. Her moment is right now. Can this buzz be sustained a year or more? Can her audience be engaged for that long? Yes, if she’s continually giving them the books they want…at the price point they want.

What's interesting to me is how many editors and pundits still don't see how fast things are changing, in many ways for the better, for writers in this new, digital landscape. The media that covers publishing...Publishers Weekly, Publishers Lunch, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, etc... seem to be even slower to get this than the publishers are. Some of the coverage of Eisler and Hocking, and the ways the economics, sales, and distribution of self-publishing have changed in the last twelve months, has been totally inept.

Poop Paper

Now they are making stationery out of pachyderm poop. Obviously, this is going in my next MONK book. Here's an excerpt from the Los Angeles Times story:

Vijender Shekhawat's big break came while visiting a shrine near the Amber Fort in Jaipur, as he glanced down at the pile of elephant dung he had just failed to avoid. A struggling maker of handmade paper, he noticed that the texture of the plant-eating animal's manure was a lot like wood pulp.

Eureka! he thought. Pachyderm poop paper.

[...]Shekhawat, who believes he was India's first elephant dung papermaker when he launched the venture eight years ago, uses 3,300 pounds of droppings a week. The dung is first washed, then boiled with baking soda and salt to reduce the smell, beaten to a pulp, forced through a sieve and flattened into sheets. Drying takes a day to, during rainy season, a week.

At one point, Shekhawat fed the elephants turmeric hoping to create yellow paper. That failed. Now he adds organic dyes late in the process, including beet juice for red paper, dried pomegranate skins for gray and the castor oil plant for green.

He now produces 2,000 2-by-3-foot sheets a week, which sell as far afield as the United States and Europe.

Spinetingling Interview

Spinetingler Magazine has a long interview with me today on e-publishing. My thoughts on the subject have changed a bit since I did the interview but probably aren't new to any of you who've read my blog, but even so, here's a taste:

But have publishers been slow to adapt? Absolutely. Are they pricing ebooks too high? In some cases yes, but I don’t necessarily believe that the arbitrary $9.99 figure set by Amazon makes financial sense for publishers or authors…not while there are still hardcovers and paperbacks being published. The $2.99 price point makes a lot of sense for self-published authors like Joe and me…but does it make sense for Michael Connelly’s latest book from Little Brown? I don’t think so.

There’s no question that publishers should definitely be giving their authors a much bigger ebook royalties…and they will. It’s inevitable. But right now, publishers are in a state of total confusion and terror. They don’t know what to do…Borders is on the verge of collapse, Barnes & Noble is closing stores, ebook sales are exploding… it’s akin to what radio was facing when television came along. So they are trying to cut costs, pruning the midlist, firing editors, hunkering down and waiting out the storm. How they will emerge afterwards is anybody’s guess at this point.

It’s naive to think, though, that James Patterson or Janet Evanovich or authors in their stratosphere are going to be walking away from traditional publishing any time soon…they benefit enormously from the infrastructure and reach those companies provide. You can’t compare what A-list writers get from traditional publishing to what mid-list writers are experiencing. They are different universes. And it’s naive to think that big publishers, or printed books, are going to disappear. I’m sure the ebook world will, like the print world, continue to be dominated by the big publishers and the big authors (the big players in radio became the dominant players in TV, too). But there is more opportunity now for individual authors to take charge of their own careers. That said, it would not surprise me if Amazon, and eretailers like them, eventually institute some kind of filtering system to deal with the deluge of self-published work that they are being hit with. The slush pile has gone digital…and it’s going to be overwhelming, for Amazon and for readers, to wade through it all.

Just Say No

Author Terrill Lee Lankford announced on his blog that he has just walked away from a big advance from a major publisher on his next book over the outrageous 75/25 e-book royalty split...and is going to self-publish instead. He says, in part: 

What this "sizable advance" now looks like to me is a very expensive loan. I have been watching the e-book revolution carefully for the last two years and it is clear to me that by 2012 everything we have thought about traditional publishing will be history. The bookstores know this. The publishers know this. And some of the writers know this. But I have a feeling not everyone has gotten the memo yet.

[...] So I have no choice but to go full indie here. You heard me. I am walking away from a potential traditional publishing deal and joining the ranks of the self-published.[...] This is a huge gamble for someone in my position. I am not prolific. My habit has been to publish two books every seven years or so. That time was approaching and I was hoping that I had found a new home with this editor and publishing house. But I can't sign away my financial legacy to my children in this fashion, however small it may be.

He also has a warning for mid-list authors who are seeing new publisher interest in their dormant backlist...

In the meantime a lot of the little folks who just want to see print again are probably going to be seduced by new interest from publishers. I have a feeling there is going to be a tidal wave of cheap purchases by the publishers hoping to tie up as much material as possible at these usury rates. And then how much will your "platform" be worth? If you are just another name in a list of hundreds fighting for attention on a giant slate of titles you will have handed in your work cheap, with no way of getting it returned to you. Yes, that's right. E-books don't go out of print, so if you don't fight for time limits, your work will be lost to you. Permanently.

I think we are going to see more and more authors, those who haven't become household names, doing the math and making the same decision that he has.

Publishers Screwing Authors out of E-Book Royalties

Here's an Authors Guild report regarding how publishers are ripping off writers on ebook royalties...

E-Book Royalty Math: The Big Tilt
 
To mark the one-year anniversary of the Great Blackout, Amazon's weeklong shut down of e-commerce for nearly all of Macmillan's titles, we’re sending out a series of alerts this week and next on the state of e-books, authorship, and publishing. The first installment (“How Apple Saved Barnes & Noble. Probably.”) discussed the outcome, one year later, of that battle. Today, we look at the e-royalty debate, which has been simmering for a while, but is likely to soon heat up as the e-book market grows. 
 
E-book royalty rates for major trade publishers have coalesced, for the moment, at 25% of the publisher’s receipts. As we’ve pointed out previously, this is contrary to longstanding tradition in trade book publishing, in which authors and publishers effectively split the net proceeds of book sales (that's how the industry arrived at the standard hardcover royalty rate of 15% of  list price). Among the ills of this radical pay cut is the distorting effect it has on publishers’ incentives: publishers generally do significantly better on e-book sales than they do on hardcover sales. Authors, on the other hand, always do worse.
 
How much better for the publisher and how much worse for the author? Here are examples of author’s royalties compared to publisher’s gross profit (income per copy minus expenses per copy), calculated using industry-standard contract terms:  
 
“The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett  
Author’s Standard Royalty: $3.75 hardcover; $2.28 e-book. Author’s E-Loss = -39% 
Publisher’s Margin: $4.75 hardcover; $6.32 e-book. Publisher’s E-Gain = +33%
 
“Hell’s Corner,” by David Baldacci 
Author's Standard Royalty: $4.20 hardcover; $2.63 e-book. Author’s E-Loss = -37% 
Publisher’s Margin: $5.80 hardcover; $7.37 e-book. Publisher’s E-Gain = +27%
 
“Unbroken,” by Laura Hillenbrand 
Author’s Standard Royalty: $4.05 hardcover; $3.38 e-book. Author’s E-Loss = -17% 
Publisher’s Margin: $5.45 hardcover; $9.62 e-book. Publisher’s E-Gain = +77%
 
So, everything else being equal, publishers will naturally have a strong bias toward e-book sales. It certainly does wonders for cash flow: not only does the publisher net more, but the reduced royalty means that every time an e-book purchase displaces a hardcover purchase, the odds that the author’s advance will earn out -- and the publisher will have to cut a check for royalties -- diminishes. In more ways than one, the author’s e-loss is the publisher’s e-gain.
 
Inertia, unfortunately, is embedded in the contractual landscape. If the publisher were to offer more equitable e-royalties in new contracts, it would ripple through much of the publisher’s catalog: most major trade publishers have thousands of contracts that require an automatic adjustment or renegotiation of e-book royalties if the publisher starts offering better terms. (Some publishers finesse this issue when they amend older contracts, many of which allow e-royalty rates to quickly escalate to 40% of the publisher’s receipts. Amending old contracts to grant the publisher digital rights doesn’t trigger the automatic adjustment, in the publisher's view.) Given these substantial collateral costs, publishers will continue to strongly resist changes to their e-book royalties for new books.
 
Resistance, in the long run, will be futile. As the e-book market continues to grow, competitive pressures will almost certainly force publishers to share e-book proceeds fairly. Authors with clout simply won’t put up with junior partner status in an increasingly important market. New publishers are already willing to share fairly. Once one of those publishers has the capital to pay even a handful of authors meaningful advances, or a major trade publisher decides to take the plunge, the tipping point will likely be at hand.
 
In the meantime, what’s to be done? We’ll address that in our next installment in this series, on Monday.
 
Our assumptions and calculations for the figures above follow.
 
-------------------------------------------------------- 
Doing the Numbers: Hardcover
 
To keep things as simple as possible, we assumed that for hardcovers: (1) the publisher sells at an average 50% discount to the wholesaler or retailer (2) the royalty rate is 15% of list price (as it is for most hardcover books, after 10,000 units are sold), (3) the average marginal cost to manufacture the book and get it to the store is $3, and (4) the return rate is 25% (a handy number -- if one of four books produced is returned, then the $3 marginal cost of producing the book is spread over three other books, giving us a return cost of $1 per book). We also rounded up retail list price a few pennies to give us easy figures to work with.
 
“The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett has a hardcover retail list price of $25. The standard royalty (15% of list) would be $3.75. The publisher grosses $12.50 per book at a 50% discount. Subtract from that the author's royalty ($3.75), cost of production ($3), and cost of returns ($1), and the publisher nets $4.75 on the sale of a hardcover book.
 
“Hell’s Corner” by David Baldacci, has a retail list price is $28. The standard royalty is $4.20; the publisher's gross is $14. Subtract royalties ($4.20), production and return costs ($4), and the publisher nets $5.80.
 
“Unbroken,” by Laura Hillenbrand has a hardcover list price of $27. Standard royalties are $4.05. The publisher's gross is $13.50. Subtract royalties of $4.05 and production and return costs of $4, and the publisher nets $5.45.
 
Doing the Numbers: E-Book
 
E-book royalty rates are uniform among the major trade publishers, but pricing and discounting formulas fall into two camps: the reseller model favored by Amazon (Random House is the only large trade publisher using this model) and the agency model introduced by Apple a year ago. (See yesterday’s alert for more information on these models.)
 
Under the reseller model, the online bookseller pays 50% of the retail list price of the book to the publisher and sells the book at whatever price the bookseller chooses (for bestsellers, Amazon typically sells Random House e-books at a significant loss). Random House frequently prices the e-book at the same price as the hardcover until a paperback edition is available.
 
Under the agency model, the online bookseller pays 70% of the retail list price of the e-book to the publisher. The bookseller, acting as the publisher’s agent, sells the e-book at the price established by the publisher, but the publisher is constrained by agreement with Apple and others to set a price significantly below that for the hardcover version.
 
The unit costs to the publisher, under either model, are simply the author’s royalty and the encryption fee, for which we’ll use a generous 50 cents per unit.
 
Here’s the math:
 
“The Help” has an e-book list price of $13 and is sold under the agency model. Publisher grosses 70% of retail price, or $9.10. Author's royalty is 25% of publisher receipts, or $2.28. Publisher nets $6.32. ($9.10 minus $2.28 royalties and $0.50 encryption fee.)
 
“Hell’s Corner” is also sold under the agency model at a retail list price of $15 list price. Publisher grosses 70% of retail price, $10.50. Author's royalty is 25% of publisher receipts, or $2.63. Publisher nets $7.37. ($10.50 minus $2.63 royalties and $0.50 encryption fee.)  
 
“Unbroken” is sold by Random House under the reseller model at a retail list price of $27. Publisher grosses $13.50 on the sale. Author’s royalty, at 25%, is $3.38. Random House nets $9.62. ($13.50 minus $3.38 royalties and $0.50 encryption fee.)

UPDATE: Here's a letter that MacMillan is sending out to authors with their royalty statements...

Dear Authors, Illustrators and Agents,

As you all know, there has been tremendous growth and change in the digital book market over the last year, The purpose of this note is to explain two favorable adjustments we have made to your earnings on e-book sales during the past royalty period in light of the events of last year.

On April 1st 2010, Macmillan adopted the agency model for selling our e-books and, in doing so, we accomplished two extremely important goals to help ensure that the publishing business remains healthy for both you and us. The first, and most important one, was to create a level playing field for electronic book distribution. Amazon had been providing the e-book versions of new release hardcovers at $9.99, considerably under Amazon’s cost, making it very difficult for anyone else to prosper or even enter the market. Since we moved to the agency model, Apple has entered the market, Barnes and Noble has increased its investment in the business, and independent booksellers, working with Google, are now selling your books competitively in the electronic book market. Second, by successfully setting the price on the e-book versions of first release hardcovers above $9.99. We have been able to prove that the consumer does in fact place a value higher than $9.99 on first release electronic books.

The long term ramifications of both these changes are enormous. What was previously a digital business with only one real player (who was getting dangerously close to a monopolistic position, fueled by aggressive pricing) is now a much healthier marketplace where many can compete and distribute your books at prices determined by the market.

All of this is the context for answering the question I’m sure is on your mind: What about my royalties?

Your enclosed statement includes e-book royalties if we sold an e-book of your work during the May 1 through October 31 royalty period. Almost every contract we had in effect during this royalty period sets an escalating royalty (10%/12.5%/15%) based on the list price of the book. Under the agency model, the list price is the end price to the consumer, so your contractual earned royalties would therefore be the number of e-books sold multiplied by the list price of the e-book and then multiplied by the royalty rate.

Meanwhile, the publishing industry standard for electronic book royalty rates has clearly settled 25% of net receipts, which is the rate that we now offer in our publishing contracts for new books. This rate produces higher royalty earnings than the list price based rate.

We have therefore made the decision for this royalty period to increase your royalty to 25% of net receipts. We are presenting this adjustment in your attached royalty statement by first backing out your contractual electronic book royalty earnings (so you can see what they were) and then adding in the new higher royalty earnings according to new agency model calculation. We have only made this adjustment if it works in your favor (which is almost universally the case).

If you have not previously signed an amendment adjusting your contractual royalty on e-books to 25% of net receipts and you would like us to continue making this adjustment in future royalty periods, we need you to amend your contracts with us… [Contact information deleted here]

In addition to the favorable royalty recalculation mentioned above, you may also see an item toward the bottom of your statement called Amazon Kindle Outage Adjustment. Most of these adjustments were processed last royalty period but some are being finalized now. We believe it was not fair that authors should suffer from the Amazon buy button takedown imposed on us for a week last year when we switched over to the agency model. So we estimated as best we could what Kindle sales would have been for that week and processed the royalties on those sales as if they had happened. Amazon felt the same way and graciously split the cost with us. Interestingly, from what we could discover, almost all non-Kindle Amazon sales migrated to other outlets.

It is hard to see into next month never mind next year. Our business is in the midst of an enormous transformation. But do know that we are in this together and that our interests are aligned. We at Macmillan will keep working for a piracy-free, competition-friendly digital marketplace for your works, while supporting the bricks and mortar retailers for the ink-and-paper books that we all cherish. It is, as always, a great delight to be your publisher.

I hope this letter has been helpful. If you have questions about your statements please contact our Royalty Accounting Department.

All best,

John Sargent

Take a Hint

The print ads for the awful new TVLand sitcom RETIRED AT 35 feature the three stars of the show under the headline "When Your Career Goes South." I couldn't help noticing what's missing from the picture. See if you can spot it (click on the photo for a larger view):

The show's three stars are pictured, but only two are identified -- George Segal and Jessica Walter. The poor guy who is at the center of the sitcom and the advertisement isn't mentioned at all. Apparently, his career has already gone south. If I was him, whoever the hell he is, I'd start looking for a new agent. 

Some Mystery Bookstore Memories

I must have hundreds of photos from the Mystery Bookstore, going back twenty years, but here are a few that I found lingering on my hard-drive tonight.

1. Me signing with a broken arm at the Mystery bookstore's booth at the Festival of Books.

2. Bob Levinson, manager Bobby McCue, Me, Ken Kuhlken, and Gar Haywood at a booksigning for HOLLYWOOD & CRIME.

3.  Me finally getting to meet one of my favorite authors Garry Disher and discovering that he'd dedicated his book to me.

4. Michael Connelly, Martha Lawrence and me at a 2001 signing.

5. Me and Zoe Sharp signing together.

6. Me and Victor Gischler at a Festival of Books party.

7. Jerrilyn Farmer, my daughter Maddie, and me at a booksigning.

 

These photos don't begin to cover all the countless booksignings, readings and parties I've attended there...or all the times I just stopped in to browse for books. I remember visiting the store, back when it was in West Hollywood, and imagining what it would be like to have a book of mine on a shelf there some day. Sheldon MacArthur, who ran the store in the early days, recommended so many great books and authors to me that I probably never would have discovered on my own. He was incredibly supportive of my aspirations to be an author myself. Not only did I end up signing my first book there... but my brother signed his first one there, too. And so many of the close friendships that I have with other authors began inside that store. It's really hard for me to accept that it's closing.

Tragic News

Today, Los Angeles lost a great bookstore. Authors got an email today from Kirk Pasich and Pamela Woods, owners of the Mystery Bookstore, announcing that they are closing their store on January 31. It's like hearing that close friend has been diagnosed with a terminal, and incurable, illness.

We have very much enjoyed owning the Mystery Bookstore in Los Angeles.

We've enjoyed your books and getting to know you, and the kindness and generosity of spirit you've shown us--as well as your visits and signings.  Unfortunately, we, too, are going the way of too many independent bookstores.  We simply cannot compete with the Amazons of the world and the impact of the economy.  We love the bookstore and mysteries and the relationships we've formed with authors and publishers and agents and publicists.  But, we do have retirement to think about (not in the near future!), and family and, well, all of those things that require money.  So, it is with considerable sadness that we announce that The Mystery Bookstore, Los Angeles, will--after many years (and as apparently the last-standing bookstore in Westwood, other than UCLA's student store)--be closing. Our last day will be January 31, 2011.

This is very sad news... both for me as a mystery lover, a reader, and as an author. I am really going to miss it.

Why am I not watching TV?

I'm a TV geek. I love TV. I write about TV, I read about TV, and I work in TV. So why have I watched so little of it this season?

For example, I never missed an episode of LAW & ORDER:SVU. Until now. This season, I've seen one episode (the horrendous "soft drinks are evil" episode)...and I haven't been back. (Of course, last season may go down as their worst ever and that may have turned me off to the show).

I loved MODERN FAMILY last season, I watched every, single episode. This season, I've watched three. I liked them all. But haven't been back.

I've seen about half of the CASTLEs this season. Have a bunch on my Tivo. Haven't watched them.

I've seen two episodes each of NIKITA, DETROIT 187, BLUE BLOODS, THE WALKING DEAD, BOARDWALK EMPIRE...I liked them, enough to get season passes on my Tivo, but so far, I haven't gone back to see any of them.

Last season, I watched four episodes of THE GOOD WIFE. Liked it. Tivo'd every episode, and still do. Haven't watched any of'em yet. I used to be an avid viewer of HOUSE, BONES, and CSI ...and haven't watched them now for a couple of years.

I've seen three LAW & ORDER: LA's and that was enough. I saw two DEFENDERS, also enough. I saw one episode of each of CHASE, NO ORDINARY FAMILY, and THE GOOD GUYS. I saw one SHIT MY DAD SAYS and one MIKE & MOLLY, and I want that hour of my life back.

The only shows I haven't missed an episode of this season are DEXTER, JUSTIFIED, and LEVERAGE...and HAWAII FIVE-O (which is astonishing, since 5-o is so disappointing on so many levels. Why the hell do I keep going back?). I have watched a few UK shows... SHERLOCK, LUTHOR, LEWIS, etc...but those are only three to six episodes each.

And I, a life-long TV geek, have never seen a single episode of the Emmy-winning and wildly acclaimed series MAD MEN or BREAKING BAD. I've also never seen a single episode of  BROTHERS & SISTERS, IN TREATMENT, THE EVENT, LIFE UNEXPECTED, VAMPIRE DIARIES, THE HUMAN TARGET and most of the new sitcoms.

I used to watch everything. I used to make sure I saw at least one episode of every new series. 

What I can't figure out is... why have I stopped watching TV? What's happened to me? 

Part of it may be there is so much more TV than ever before...ABC, CBS, FOX, CW, USA, TNT, TBS,Showtime, HBO, Starz, AMC...that it's impossible to keep up.

Part of it may be that I have been writing a lot...and watching TV feels like cheating on my deadlines.

Or maybe it's because so much of what I'm seeing feels rehashed and cliche-ridden...and I'm tired of being 20 steps ahead, plot wise, of the shows that I am watching. 

Or maybe I've just watched too much for too long and need a sabbatical. 

I have no clue. And yet, I feel guilty for "falling behind" in my TV viewing, like it's some sort of obligation.

But, and here's the really strange thing, I don't miss it.

Plagiarist's Goose is Cooked

I just stumbled, very late to the party, on this great story at The Consumerist about a cooking magazine that's facing demise after publishing a story that it stole from a writer.

After the writer, Monica Gaudio, discovered that her article had been lifted, without permission or pay, by Cook Source Magazine, she demanded a printed apology and a $130 donation to the Columbia School of Journalism. But the editor, Judith Griggs, was unapologetic, and fired back that Gaudio should be grateful for the editing that was done on the article...and consider herself fortunate that she wasn't being sent a bill. 

 honestly Monica, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me... ALWAYS for free!

But the real, amazing twist to this story is that Griggs is now blaming the writer for the likely demise of Cook Source Magazine.

"The bad news is that this is probably the final straw for Cooks Source," says the unsigned note posted on Cooks Source website. "We have never been a great money-maker even with all the good we do for businesses. Having a black mark wont help ... and now, our black mark will become our shroud. ... This will end us."

The note goes on to criticize writer Monica Gaudio for not giving Cooks Source more time to explain its mistake. "I really wish she had given me a chance to respond to her before blasting me. She really never gave me a chance."

Amazing stuff!

Sign of the Times, II

Two big Borders stores in my area -- the one in Westwood Village and the one in Thousand Oaks -- are closing, holding "everything must go sales." They may only be part of the first wave. The Los Angeles Times reports that Borders is having a severe liquidity problem that could lead to more store closures.

Borders Group Inc., the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain, lost more than a fifth of its market value Friday after saying it had delayed payments to some publishers while trying to avert a liquidity crisis.

Borders shares sank 26 cents, or 22%, to 90 cents, the biggest drop in more than two years. The shares have retreated 24% this year.

The company said last month that it was in talks to refinance debt and might violate its credit agreements in the first quarter if negotiations failed. Borders reiterated Friday that it couldn't guarantee that its initiatives would be successful. If the refinancing fails, the chain may face a "liquidity shortfall" in the next quarter, said Mary Davis, a Borders spokeswoman.

"The timing certainly raises eyebrows," said Peter Wahlstrom, an analyst with Morningstar Inc. in Chicago. Bookstores are typically most flush with cash at the end of the holiday shopping season, when they can stock lower inventories for the slow winter months, he said.

"If they are doing this at the end of December, it's more concerning," Wahlstrom said.

Borders is in discussions with potential lenders that would provide funds through the start of 2012, the Ann Arbor, Mich., company said Dec. 9. Borders also said it was looking to raise money through asset sales and cost reductions.

If Borders doesn't find additional lenders, the company may have to accelerate store closures, Wahlstrom said.

Borders and larger rival Barnes & Noble Inc. face growing competition as consumers download more digital books on electronic devices such as Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle. Borders has reported three quarterly losses in a row as sales and its store count shrank.

The Mail I Get - The Crooks from People Magazine Edition

When my Mom died in November, and we were settling her accounts and subscriptions, we discovered that she'd renewed People Magazine through March 2015. We tried to get the magazine to cancel the subscription and refund the money, but they refused. So now we're getting the magazine here at the house. It's fine bathroom reading, let me tell you. What we couldn't figure out is what possessed my Mom to renew her subscription so far in advance. 

Now we know. She was tricked into it. 

Today, she got a bill from People Magazine, which I found pretty surprising, since my Mom was paid up well into the afterlife. 

Inside, I found an invoice that stated that her minimum amount due is $237.30, that her minimum current payment due is $158.20, and that it must be in by 1/16/11.  You can see the invoice yourself right here (I've redacted her account number and address).

You'll notice that nowhere on the "Summary of Account" does it state that this is simply a renewal offer, that she doesn't actually owe anything, and that her subscription doesn't expire for another four years.

My mother lived on a fixed income. She was tens of thousands of dollars in debt. And she had big medical bills. But I have no doubt that if she was still alive today, as ill as she was with "chemo brain," she would have paid this "bill" thinking that she owed the money and that she'd lose her subscription if she didn't. 

This invoice is an example of reprehensible business practices. You'd think that People Magazine would be required by law to say, clearly and in large letters, that this is a renewal offer and not a bill, that no payment is required at all, and that the current subscription is not in danger of expiring for a few more years.

The people at People Magazine are garden-variety swindlers, preying on the old and the addled, and they should be stopped from engaging in this kind of deception. It's shameful.

Does anybody know which government agency I can complain to about these scumbags? 

Sign of the Times

The Los Angeles Times reports that Barnes & Noble is now selling more ebooks than paper ones at their online store. 

Customers bought or downloaded nearly 1 million e-books on Christmas Day alone, the company said in a press release.

The Nook e-reader has become a bestseller, according to the bookseller. The Nook Color, introduced two months before Christmas, was the company's No. 1 selling holiday gift item, according to the company release.

Maybe so, but sales of my books on the Nook have been lousy...about 75 copies in December. On the other hand, this has been my best month ever on the Kindle. I've sold 800 copies of THE WALK as of today (nearly 20,000 total since I launched the ebook in June 2009) and I'm looking to earn $5000 in royalties this month from all of my out-of-print work.

Front Page News

Author Joe Konrath isn't just a blogopsphere sensation any more. Today, he made the front page of The Los Angeles Times in a story with the provocative headline "Authors Writing Off Publishers" (the headline makes a curious shift in focus in the online edition: "Book Publishers See Their Role as Gatekeepers Shrink"). Here's an excerpt:

Joe Konrath can't wait for his books to go out of print.

When that happens, the 40-year-old crime novelist plans to reclaim the copyrights from his publisher, Hyperion Books, and self-publish them on Amazon.com, Apple Inc.'s iBooks and other online outlets. That way he'll be able to collect 70% of the sale price, compared with the 6% to 18% he receives from Hyperion.

As for future novels, Konrath plans to self-publish all of them in digital form without having to leave his house inSchaumburg, Ill.

"I doubt I'll ever have another traditional print deal," said the author of "Whiskey Sour," "Bloody Mary" and other titles. "I can earn more money on my own."

For more than a century, writers have made the fabled pilgrimage to New York, offering their stories to publishing houses and dreaming of bound editions on bookstore shelves. Publishers had the power of the purse and the press. They doled out advances to writers they deemed worthy and paid the cost of printing, binding and delivering books to bookstores. In the world of print, few authors could afford to self-publish.

The Internet has changed all that, allowing writers to sell their works directly to readers, bypassing agents and publishers who once were the gatekeepers.

It's difficult to gauge just how many authors are dumping their publishing houses to self-publish online, though for now, the overall share remains small. But hardly a month goes by without a well-known writer taking the leap or declaring an intention to do so.

It is certainly the hot-topic of discussion whenever I get together with my writer-friends. I even had a long talk about it with my publisher during Bouchercon, who seemed honestly stunned by the money I was making off my backlist, particularly THE WALK. 

In fact, my wife was looking at my Kindle royalties the other day... which have hit an all-time high and are paid within weeks... and asked me why I even bothered continuing to write my MONK novels. Even the CreateSpace print-on-demand paperback edition of THE WALK is selling surprisingly well (If sales continue at the current pace, I'll sell 150 copies of the paperback this month, with a royalty of $4.04 per book). All of that is gravy...remember, these are out-of-print books of mine that we are talking about.

Even though the MONK books sell very well, in hardcover and paperback, my royalty rate is substantially less than what I earn on my out-of-print work on the Kindle.  And it can take more than a year, often much longer, before I see any royalty checks, particularly on my early, three-book deals that were cross-collateralized (on those, I don't get paid until all three books earn out my advance). And then, of course, there's the commission my agent takes from every check (and I am not begrudging her that at all, she worked very hard for it).

So yeah, self-publishing is looking very good to me. Something that would have been inconceivable to me as recently as two years ago.

Here's more from the article: 

Authors typically get 10% to 25% of the proceeds of digital sales if they go through a publisher, compared with 40% to 70% if they self-publish.

For Konrath, the math made his choice easy. He said he earned $1.17 in royalties for each digital copy of "Whiskey Sour" sold by Hyperion. That's roughly 25% of the sale price of $4.69.

When he self-publishes on Amazon, Konrath prices his books at $2.99 and earns $2.04 a copy, or just under 70%.

"If a traditional publisher offered me a quarter of a million dollars for a novel, I'd consider it," he said. "But anything less than that, I'm sure I can do better on my own."

He makes a good point...one readers of this blog have heard repeatedly. The publishing world has changed dramatically in the last twelve months and so has my thinking about my own future as an author.

I will keep writing the MONK books as long as they continue being successful...but I honestly don't know whether I will take my next original novel to publishers, unless my agent can convince me it's a game-changer that will be a break me out of the mid-list.

For an established mid-list author like myself, I can't say that working with publishers really makes much financial sense any more...it certainly doesn't to my wife, whose opinion carries a lot of sway with me.

But how do you get readers to find your work amidst the tsunami of sludge...all the hideous, not-ready-for-primetime swill that's being sold by aspiring writers? Here's what the article had to say about that:

With millions of titles potentially flooding the market, readers will have to rely more on external cues to guide their purchases, whether it's a favorable review from a celebrity, a tip from a social-media contact or the backing of a major publisher.

"Until someone comes up with an algorithm to sort the good manuscripts from the bad, publishers and their human network of agents and editors maintain an advantage," McQuivey said. "But sooner or later someone will create a new way for readers to find the books they most want to read, and that someone may or may not be a traditional book publisher."

It may not even be human.

Amazon, Apple Inc., Netflix Inc., Pandora Media Inc. and other technology companies use software that analyzes consumer behavior to recommend choices in music, movies and other products.

Indeed, the challenge in a world where anyone can publish a book is getting people to pay attention.

To that end, in my our own small way, I've banded together with Max Allan Collins, Vicki Hendricks, Harry Shannon, Joel Goldman, Dave Zeltserman, Ed Gorman, Paul Levine, and Bill Crider to create Top Suspense, a place where readers can find ebooks by estalished, acclaimed, award-winning writers whose work they can rely on to deliver the goods in a variety of genres...horror, westerns, mystery, thrillers, and crime. It's a small step...but it could blossom into something more. At this point, everything in the digital book world is an experiment of sorts...but exciting and full of possibilities nonetheless.

They Ought to Sell Louis Vuitton at the Student Store

Everything you need to know about Calabasas, the town where I live, can be gleaned from looking at the crimes reported in today's police blotter:

A student at Calabasas High School filed a grand theft report after property was stolen from her car.

The missing items included a $1,600 Louis Vuitton brown leather purse, a $300 brown leather Louis Vuitton wallet, a $400 silver digital camera, a $250 black ipod, and a $200 Louis Vuitton leather checkbook.

She was unsure whether the doors to her car were locked and there was no sign of forced entry into the vehicle.

Gum and Cookie Caper

The Shell gas station on Agoura Road was robbed of a 14 sticks of Orbitz gum worth $3.98 and a $.79 pack of cookies.

The employee told police that a female entered the store and paid cash for $5 worth of gas and took two packs of gum. She pumped the gas and returned to the story, where the clerk asked her to pay for the gum.

The female replied, “I just gave you $30,” grabbed a package of cookies, left the store, and drove away.

 

The Name is Book, E Book.

The Ian Fleming Estate has realized what so many other published authors already know -- that if you own the digital rights to your backlist, it makes more financial sense to publish the ebooks yourself.  So the estate is publishing the digital versions of the Bond novels themselves, cutting out Penguin, which still has the entire series in print. The London Telegraph says that this move could be the beginning of a wave of established authors choosing to self-publish the digital versions of their highly successful franchises.

The books industry could lose out on millions of pounds because publishers have failed to sign up the digital rights to authors, who are expected to bypass traditional publishing houses in favour of Amazon or Google.

Industry insiders suggested that blockbusting authors including JK Rowling, Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie would be looking at the deal closely.

The digital versions of the 007 books will be published by Ian Fleming Publications, which administers the rights to the Bond books.

[...]There are many authors still working that have not signed away the digital rights to their books, allowing them to cut out their traditional publisher if they chose to. Agents said they had grown increasingly irritated by the low royalty rates offered by publishers for digital rights.

This development doesn't surprise me at all, especially in light of the sobering news from Publishers Weekly this week about the plunge in "paper" sales and the incredible surge in digital in September.

As sales in the traditional trade segments plunged in September, e-book sales jumped 158.1%, according to the monthly sales estimates released by the Association of American Publishers. Sales for the 14 publishers that reported e-book sales hit $39.9 million in the month, and were up 188.4% in the first nine months of the year to $304.6 million. In contrast, sales in the three adult trade segments, adult hardcover, trade paperback and mass market paperback, all fell by more than double digits with the adult hardcover segment experiencing the biggest decline with sales down 40.4% at the 17 publisher who reported sales to the AAP of $180.3 million. The only other segment to post a significant sales gain in September was downloadable audio with sales from the nine reporting companies up 73.7%, to $7.7 million. Sales of audio CDs fell 42.6%, to $11.6 million, in the month at the 22 reporting companies.

Established authors with a large back-list, whether the titles are in print or not, could see significant increases in their revenues putting the digital versions of those books out themselves. And the news is getting around. Look for a surge in 2011 of established authors self-publishing the digital versions of their backlists.

This has agents scrambling for an approach on how to get a share of this potential income. I've already heard that some agents are talking about inserting clauses in their new agency agreements with authors that grant them commissions on the digital self-publication of any books for which they negotiated the original print deals. It will be interesting to see how that goes over.

Room 007, Please

The ultimate hotel room for Bond geeks is at the aptly named Seven Hotel in Paris. 

Walla Walla Octopus

The big story gripping my mother's hometown of  Walla Walla Washington this past weekend was the controversy over a mural on the front of Inland Octopus, a toy store on Main Street. What amused me was a letter-to-the-editor from David Castleman of Dayton, WA slamming the mural's supporters. He wrote, in part:

"Those good folks who applaud the tawdriness adorning Inland Octopus are the folks who eat at McDonald's and ship at WalMart. They applaud the tawdry, the ill-conceived and the ill-produced. The painter's ostensible deity is Warhol, his priests the Simpsons, his bible the comic strips for domestic imbecility. His admirers pick their noses at stop signs and relieve the expiscations upon their skirts and trousers." 

I have to admit that I had to look up expiscation in the dictionary. 

Star Whackers

You have to see this bizarre "Good Morning America" interview with Randy & Evi Quaid, who fled to Canada to evade the "star whackers" who are out to take their money and kill them. It's only a matter of time before these two end up in a mental institution.

Who Says the Recession is Over?

If the recession is over, why are so many businesses closing? I just learned that my local Barnes & Noble in Calabasas is shutting down in a few weeks...and that one of my favorite BBQ joints, It's In The Sauce in Ventura, is up for sale. This is bad news for me... those are two of my favorite places to go.

Steve Cannell is Dr. Danger

Here's a clip from a DIAGNOSIS MURDER episode that Bill Rabkin & I wrote...and that we cast Steve Cannell in as an action-adventure producer doing a TV pilot based on Dr. Mark Sloan's life. When the pilot doesn't sell, he remakes it....upping the action to a ridiculous level and casting himself in the lead. The clip is from that revamped pilot... 

 

Steve's Memorial

The memorial for Stephen J. Cannell was held today in Pasadena and it was a moving, funny, and heartfelt event that was perfectly in keeping with his personality and approach to life. The church was packed with family and friends, network & studio executives, actors & writers... and probably anybody who ever was lucky enough to work with Steve.  The stories told during the memorial shared a common theme -- that Steve Cannell was an incredibly nice, giving and honorable guy in a business that has far too few of them. I certainly owe a lot to him.

Everybody that you'd expect to be there was... actors like Robert Conrad, Tom Selleck, Mario Van Peebles, Ernie Hudson, Lorenzo Lamas, Joe Penny, Mr. T, Ben Vereen, Fred Dryer, Jeff Goldblum, Stefanie Kramer, Michael Dudikoff, James Darren, Kent McCord, and Joe Santos...and writer/producers like Steven Bochco, Joel Surnow, Glen Larson, Patrick Hasburgh, Steve Kronish, Michael Gleason, and William Link...and even a few authors, like Paul Levine and Gregg Hurwitz.

The reception afterwards was truly a festive and upbeat celebration of Steve's life. 

I spent hours catching up with lots of old friends that I hadn't seen in years...and some I haven't seen enough of lately.... it's unfortunate that it was Steve's death that had to bring us all together again. Everyone I spoke to seemed to have a favorite anecdote to share about Steve that revealed his humor and his heart, his talent and his loyalty.

Someone at the memorial -- I can't remember who -- described Steve as larger-than-life. And it's true. He was a character every bit as colorful, endearing, and legendary as the ones he created on the page and on screen. I like to think that his influence, his decency, and his humor lives on in through everybody who was lucky enough to have known him. 

(Pictured: Steve with my Mom, Jan Curran, at an author's event in Ventura last year and Steve and me signing together at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books a few years ago).

Remembering Steve

My friend Steve Cannell died yesterday. He was a great writer and an incredibly nice man. 

It always amazed me that a man as successful as he was could come across as such a regular guy. I'd known him for years but he had the remarkable ability to make even someone he'd just met feel like his oldest friend.  

I think I captured my feelings and memories of Steve best in the following essay, which I originally posted here in January 2009. 

==================================================================

Every time I do a signing with Steve Cannell, it's reliving a dream. I grew up admiring him and his writing on shows like THE ROCKFORD FILES and THE A-TEAM...and I dreamed of working for him someday. He had the career that I wanted...and the talent, too. I didn't think that working with him was a real possibility but I knew I could learn from him anyway. 

While I was in high school, I covered the television business for The Contra Costa Times (in Walnut Creek, CA) and came up with lots of excuses to do phone interviews with him, never once revealing that I was only 16-years-old or that I had any desire to be a TV writer. I know he liked the articles that I wrote because he told me so...and, more importantly, he never failed to return a call and was always available for a quote if I needed one.

I was still freelancing for the newspaper...and for a number of other publications...when I went down to Los Angeles to attend UCLA. I called him for an article about TENSPEED AND BROWNSHOE (or was it GREATEST AMERICAN HERO?) and I must have mentioned that I'd moved to L.A. because he invited me to his office at Samuel Goldwyn Studios. I was terrified. I was sure that once he saw I was a kid, he'd think I was a fraud and never talk to me again. But I couldn't resist the opportunity to actually meet him.

He did look shocked when I walked in the door, and I think for a moment he was afraid I was going to pitch him for a script, but I started off with a tough question about his decision to go into business for himself and the interview went great after that. Whatever awkwardness either one of us felt quickly evaporated and we talked for a couple of hours.  (I know now, after talking with him about that day, that I proved to him with that question that I was a serious journalist and not someone who'd been running a long scam to get into his office). It was a wide-ranging interview about the business, about the risks he was taking leaving Universal, and it was one of the best interviews I'd ever done. In fact, it was one of the clips that got me a job as a reporter for Newsweek. 

I interviewed him many more times over the years for various articles for a bunch of publications (the best was a huge profile in the trade magazine Electronic Media, now know as Television Week). I eventually gave up reporting and, through a lucky break, become a TV writer with William Rabkin. We sold a few freelance scripts and then got offered our first staff job... on HUNTER, a Stephen J. Cannell Production. It was fate.

Unfortunately, by that point, Steve had a  "hands off" relationship with the show, which was then being run by Fred Dryer and Marv Kupfer. Even so, I'll never forget the fantastic feeling the first day I walked into the Stephen J. Cannell Productions building as one of the writers instead of a reporter.  It was amazing.  A day or two later, I ran into Steve in the hallway.  He thought I was there for an interview and he started to apologize for forgetting the appointment...I was thrilled to tell him that no, I wasn't there for an interview...I was working for him.  He smiled and gave me a hug. 

Sadly, because of the situation at HUNTER, I didn't actually work with Steve at all...I only bumped into him now and then. The job also didn't last long .... we ended up quitting and getting hired onto BAYWATCH...but that's another story. 

The HUNTER experience didn't tarnish my relationship with Steve at all. We saw each other at industry events and he was always amazingly friendly. And as it turned out, a few years later I was back at Cannell again as a supervising producer on the syndicated series COBRA and, much to my pleasure, I actually got to work closely with him this time.  He also used to pop into my office to share bits and pieces of a novel he was working on....which became THE PLAN. 

We've remained friends ever since  -- and have signed together and spoken on panels with each other many times in many cities over the years. (Bill & I even had the amazing thrill of hiring him as an actor in a script we wrote for DIAGNOSIS MURDER...he played a burned-out TV producer of action shows...who becomes an actor!). But every time we get together, I am reminded how lucky I am to have  achieved one of my dreams and to be able to count Steve among my friends. I hope the thrill never dies. 

 ============

UPDATE: My brother  Tod has written a great post about his experiences with Steve. 

Ebooks Are Not the Enemy

Jeffrey Trachtenberg of The Wall Street Journal reports that authors are getting screwed by publishers in the ebook business.

It has always been tough for literary fiction writers to get their work published by the top publishing houses. But the digital revolution that is disrupting the economic model of the book industry is having an outsize impact on the careers of literary writers.

[...]The new economics of the e-book make the author's quandary painfully clear: A new $28 hardcover book returns half, or $14, to the publisher, and 15%, or $4.20, to the author. Under many e-book deals currently, a digital book sells for $12.99, returning 70%, or $9.09, to the publisher and typically 25% of that, or $2.27, to the author.

But Trachtenberg leaves out an attractive third option (and I have no idea why he did). What he doesn't say is that an author can publish their ebooks to the Kindle themselves and earn 70% of whatever the purchase price is ($2.06 on a $2.99 ebook). So why even bother with a publisher? I know it's a question more and more mid-list and literary authors are asking themselves. I certainly am.

The problem here isn't the rise of  ebooks...it's publishers that are a) charging too much for ebooks and b) not giving a fair royalty on ebooks to authors.

In other words, it's not ebooks that are the problem here, it's the publishers failing to adapt.

Publishers Weekly Whores Itself

Publisher's Weekly has become so desperate in the face of declining advertising and an eroding subscriber base that it has decided to whore itself, and its good name, for a few extra bucks.

The magazine is launching PW Select, a quarterly "special issue" devoted to reviewing self-published authors, which would be a great and laudable thing... except that they are charging aspiring authors a $150 "processing fee" to be included. So it's just another vanity press scam, an advertising supplement pretending to be a review publication, aimed squarely at deceiving aspiring writers out of whatever money iUniverse hasn't already shaken out of them.

But it gets  even worse, my friends.

PW has also decided to piss all over their journalistic integrity, and the minimum basic standards of ethical journalistic conduct, by drafting their staff of reporters and critics to participate.  This creates a terrible and untenable conflict-of-interest for PW writers, who are now reviewing, and reporting on, authors who have paid for the opportunity.

The entire PW editorial staff will participate in a review of the titles being considered for review, and we'll likely invite a few agent friends and distributors to have a look at what we've chosen. No promises there, just letting some publishing friends take advantage of the opportunity to see the collection.[...] We briefly considered charging for reviews, but in the end preferred to maintain our right to review what we deemed worthy. The processing fee that guarantees a listing and the chance to be reviewed accomplishes what we want: to inform the trade of what is happening in self-publishing and to present a PW selection of what has the most merit.

Do they really think that charging a $150 processing fee is any different than directly charging for reviews? Do they really think they are fooling anyone?

It's sad that PW,  once a fine and reputable publication, has decided to follow the example set by the disgraced, and widely derided, Kirkus Discoveries, and prey on the desperation of aspiring authors...sullying PW's good name in the process. But they have waded one step further into the sewer by dangling the enticement of possible agent representation or contract from a publisher as an incentive to submit to "PW Select." This puts them solidly in the ranks of vanity press scammers.

If  PW wanted to honestly and informatively report on the self-publishing field, and give worthy self-published titles the attention they deserve, while still maintaining journalistic integrity, objectivity, and good name, they would have done their special issue without charging authors to have their books included and reviewed. Or dangling the possibility of agent representation and a publishing contract to self-published authors for their participation.

This is a money grab, a blatant attempt to exploit self-published authors to improve their sagging bottom line. It's PW pissing on their own good name.

It's pitiful, disgraceful...and very sad. PW and its staff should be deeply ashamed.

Have Books Become Folk Art?

Over on Joe Konrath's blog, he's talking once again about how traditional publishing is on its death bed and how the ebook is the future. I agree with much of what he says, even if my friend's observations are beginning to feel stale and repetitive (much like my own observations on this topic and so many others). But I thought that this comment on Joe's post from reader Thomas Brookside offered a fresh insight...at least to me. Brookside wrote:

...if the question out there is why authors without any great financial interest in the present publishing system are defending it so fervently, I think the answer lies in a statement made by Anne Rice a number of years ago to the effect that when anyone can publish literature becomes a folk art.

The current system hands out very few financial rewards to authors but provides them with a lot of prestige.

I think even if they can make more money in the new paradigm and even if they can still find good books they want to read without much effort, these authors will feel highly aggrieved if the current system continues to disintegrate. If the statement "I've got a novel out right now," becomes the equivalent of "I sell handmade jewelry at flea markets on the weekend," these guys will be quite pissed off, even if they make more money and even if the slush apocalypse does not actually come about.

I think he makes a very good, and painfully accurate, point. I believe this is a genuine fear among published authors, whether they are making big money under the current model or not, and has gone unsaid.  But I don't think it's the only thing that motivates their concerns, and their fears, about the e-biz.

Certainly they have financial concerns, too. Can they still make a living as writers if the publishing business shifts to the ebook? Will their incomes increase or plummet?

And then there's concerns about the tsunami of self-published swill that's swamping the e-marketplace, and what the blowback from that might be on the e-book market, and books in general, which gets me back to my friend Joe.

No, I'm not saying his work is swill.  He's a clever writer, a savvy marketer, and is very helpful and generous with his knowledge. (I certainly owe my modest Kindle success to him). But it is his tremendous, and well-earned, success publishing his books on Amazon, and how impressively he has gotten the word out about it, which is making dollar signs dance in the eyes of newbies.

Hordes of newbies are rushing to get their work on the Kindle... even if it's horrendous in every way...and with no regard whatsoever to the impact that publishing crap will have on their careers. Because they aren't thinking about careers. They are thinking about money. Joe's money.

Even Joe, perhaps the biggest cheerleader there is for the Kindle format and the possibilities it offers writers, urges caution:

New writers tend not to know how crummy their writing is. No one learns to play piano overnight. Same thing with crafting a narrative. I've personally met thousands of newbie writers. I've only known two of these newbies that I knew were good enough to succeed--and both did. I've met maybe a dozen others that have potential. But that's it. The rest just aren't good enough. Maybe they'll become good enough, with practice. But putting starter novels on Kindle isn't good for anyone.

But I suspect that few, if any, aspiring authors have or will heed his wise advice in this regard. They are too eager to get their work out there.

It's not just those who have been published in print who have to adjust their thinking to embrace a changing publishing business...but also aspiring writers as well. As I have say many times, just because you can publish with a click of the mouse, that doesn't mean that you should.

On the other hand, for published authors, particularly those on the mid-list, times are changing. Accepting a publishing contract is no longer the no-brainer decision that it used to be, even if the offer is from a major house. Yes, it comes with an advance, editing, marketing, distribution, and prestige... but does it still make financial sense when you can publish the book in ef0rmat yourself, keep that agent commission in your pocket, and get a 70% royalty?

I don't have the answers. I don't think anybody does. But a lot of long-held beliefs about the business, certainly my own beliefs, aren't going to hold anymore.

The Straddling Bus

This Chinese "straddling bus" looks super-cool and super-smart and ec0-friendly. They ought to think about it in Los Angeles. The bus "straddles" the roadway and passes over traffic and is far cheaper to produce than a subway.