C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

Good survey of the current landscape and breakdown of the pros and cons we face. Reinforces my expectation that we’ll have to factor in advertising budgets. Learn at the link to Lindsay Buroker’s site.

~ Chazz

The Wall Street Journal counts 60 self-published authors picked up and even courted "furiously" by traditional houses. Nice!

What stands out for me in this article is that Mr. Howey kept his digital rights to Wool. I find this particularly delightful because schadenfreude, though it makes me a bad person, is also fun. 

Not so long ago, several famous agents and big publishers stated clearly that if they were going to do the self-published the favor of publishing their books in paper and distributing to bookstores, everything was on the table.  Publishers would, always and forever, get and keep digital rights, too (even if they were unprepared to do anything much with them.) That door, we were told, is closed.

Except, of course, it wasn’t. The thing that disturbs me about that state of affairs is:

1. Smart business people do not assume the world is static. Only change is constant. Old-style publishing had a good, long run and that unfortunately made some of the runners arrogant.

2. Good agents aren’t so damnably passive and argue for the publisher and against their clients. We don’t need namby-pamby Old Mother Hubbards going to the cupboard and telling us poor dogs the cupboard is bare so suck it. We need lions fighting for us, or we don’t need agents at all. 

3. Being the Party of No doesn’t work as business (or any other) climates change and dinos go extinct. If there’s still money to be made without digital rights, smart publishers will exhibit flexibility and negotiate.

4. "Because that’s the way we’ve always done it," is never a valid answer. Winners dare to ask, "What if we did it differently?"

5. These old attitudes betrayed a misplaced sense of entitlement to all publishing rights and condescension to the self-published. Smart publishers are getting over that prejudice. Not-so-smart publishers will soon be selling real estate.

I do not condemn all traditional publishers and agents. Many are wonderful, adaptive, and bring us great books. They love literature and do not fetishize book glue. They understand that greed screws up win-win and, in our information culture, the greedy are more easily identified than ever.

I’ll leave it at condemning those find themselves portrayed in Exhibits 1 through 5 and ask,"How’s that taste? Yippee-ki-yay, Mother Hubbard."

Like the author of this post, I suspect this is a case of a systems problem rather than any attempt to steal. Personally, I’ve ordered copies of my books from CreateSpace that never showed up. They were fairly quickly replaced when I complained and the service desk at CreateSpace are friendly, kind and helpful people. However, it happened more than once. Obviously there are glitches to work out. I’d be more confident if mistakes weren’t repeated. (Lesson: Make mistakes, but try to make new ones to learn from.)

Traditional publishers, too, have a history of slow accounting practices. Though that was common, it didn’t suck any less for authors. With current tracking capabilities (i.e. computers), I can’t imagine why that sort of ineptitude should continue. A small delay? Okay. When you have data dripping in from multiple venues, that’s understandable. However, from the description on this post, it sounds like there are lots of promises to investigate but not a lot of cozy answers forthcoming quickly.

I hope the authors get their answers and any outstanding royalties due soon. For most of us, if we lose sales due to accounting issues, we won’t know it. That’s why we must have a clean accounting system working with transparency, clarity and timeliness. Screw with our confidence in the system and we’ll find someone else to fill the role.

(FYI: I first reblogged this post through WordPress. You’ll note I posted it again through Scoopit! Sorry that was necessary, but Scoopit! gives me the option of deleting the photo. It was a good photo, but since I haven’t licensed the pic, I posted again through Scoopit! so I could avoid using the photo on my blog. This also goes to my Scoopit! curation page so Scoopit! service followers can further spread the word about the original post by John R. Clark that way. I don’t know if the straight reblog would be an issue, but since I don’t know, I reposted without the photo to be cautious.)

I used to edit manuscripts for traditionally and self-published authors. A client from years ago contacted me. The deal she had with a small publisher collapsed after a long process went awry. This happens for many reasons, all of them devastating to the writer. Now that she’s free again, she wonders where to begin to get back on the treadmill and get traditionally published. I think she should stay out of those chains, self-publish and write more books.

Anyone who follows this blog regularly won’t be surprised that my suggestion is, "Don’t go trad, or at the very least, don’t go trad first." Self-publish, instead. If you still want a publisher, you can still pursue that and sell books while you wait. Self-published is the new slush pile, though if all goes well, the writer may decide she doesn’t want a traditional publisher. Or she could straddle the divide and go both routes. My first advice is always, "Write more books. Don’t pin your hopes on one book."

I haven’t written about this for a long time, so it’s time to reiterate: Even if your book was accepted today at noon, the way budgets and production schedules work in trad publishing, your book probably wouldn’t see the light of day for 12, 16 or 18 months. Maybe longer, depending on multiple variables, none of which you can control. Or it could fall apart, as it did for the writer who contacted me. She’s lost years already.

Contrast

I wrote and published Six Seconds, an 18,000 word ebook, in one week. It’s about using the new Vine app to drive traffic without feeling spammy and actually having fun promoting your products and services.

(You can buy Six Seconds, The UnAuthorized Guide to How to Build Your Business with the Vine App now for $1.99. Please click the cover in the left sidebar to pick it up. Okay, I’m done whoring.)

Speed and Control

The idea for Six Seconds grew out of a blog post here. It came to me on a Thursday night. By the following Friday, it was up and in the world and pulling up the sales of all my other books. (Therefore, write one book a day and you’ll be rich.)

Six Seconds is only 18,000 words and it was easy for me to write. I love Vine and saw how I could use it to drive more traffic, coming at my readership in a new way. There’s a big market for short, funny business books. Naysayers will jump to wringing their hands about quality. If it’s fast and short, how can it be any good? 

Corollary:

That makes the Perfect the enemy of the Good, and also misunderstands my intent. It’s the first book about Vine and it’s useful. If my publishing process was slow, the book would be irrelevant. Writing Six Seconds was like pumping out a lot of blog posts that marry subjects I’m both passionate about and have expertise in. With an app so new, I’m as expert as just about any Vine user. I’ve also read plenty of books (years in production from slow writers from big houses) that would have benefited from more wit, usefulness, brevity and a much lower price.

Vine videos are 6.5 seconds long. The ebook is no longer than it needs to be for what it achieves and business book readers especially appreciate a funny, breezy style that gets to the point.

Patience is for the very young and immortal

The larger point is, I didn’t have to wait to create, produce and ship. I had a good idea (maybe even a great one) and I put it out there. I provide value and I’ll reap the rewards or not. There’s no one else to blame if it doesn’t work. Putting out a book like this feels riskier, but publishing always feels risky. I also feel tremendous pride and power in taking a helpful idea from conception to fruition in such a short span. It helps take the sting out of not living forever, too.

Whether you write fast or slow, publish fast or slow, or just want to feel like you’re making progress with your writing, waiting and asking permission takes time. Life is short and so am I. I may not have time to wait for gatekeepers to recognize my power, so I don’t bow. I claim my power. I self-publish. 

You’re an artist. Produce and publish now to prove your worth, if not for  gatekeepers, at least to your readers. 

Still not sure? Read Ann Voss Peterson’s Big Regret at A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. Click the Scoopit! link below and consider her experience. She’s very generous and honest about her experience (with numbers!) Her guest post on Joe Konrath’s blog is compulsory reading for any writer doing their due diligence so you can enter the publishing arena with informed consent.