Stormageddon

No round-up today, mes auteurs—we New Yorkers are all preparing for Hurricane Irene. We'll (hopefully) be back on Monday, and for those of you in Irene's path, stay safe and stay dry!

Panic! at the Library

As part of my ongoing coverage of the astounding (and often strange) turns the publishing industry is taking as it shifts from paper-based to electronic media, I bring you this, mes auteurs: The Consumerist's report that HarperCollins is capping e-book loans at 26 check-outs. If a library purchases a HarperCollins e-book, they can only lend it 26 times before it "expires" and the library must purchase a new license from the publisher.

This is, à mon avis, completely nuts for several reasons.

First, the idea of forced obsolescence is probably so repugnant to most librarians that, rather than buy and re-buy the same e-book over and over, they're probably just not going to purchase HarperCollins e-books.

The publisher seems to be betting on librarians' collective fear that if they don't stock their e-books, patrons will simply buy e-books on-line and the libraries won't be able to justify their continued existence. If there's a way to breed ill will among your customers (that is, the librarians actually purchasing books for their libraries), this is it.

Second, the number 26 seems completely arbitrary to me. I'm not privy to any of the logistical tinkering or number-crunching the folks at HarperCollins did in order to arrive at this figure, but it seems to me (and you can see from the video in the article) that physical books last much longer than 26 check-outs (and I can tell you from experience that they consistently survive many more).

It's possible that this is an average number that takes into account all the books that go on shelves and are never or rarely checked out, left to rot over a fifty-year period with only a couple of loans. If that's the case, though, libraries would chuck the book when it became unusable and would probably not buy a new one, since no one wanted the original to begin with.

If a publisher is going to enforce a loan cap, I think it 1.) needs to be much higher than 26 (based entirely on my uninformed opinion), and 2.) should vary depending on the work in question. Harry Potter and the Seven Figure Advance is going to be borrowed a lot more often than Actuarial Mathematics for Dummies, and the loan cap should reflect this.

Finally, the whole reason the loan cap exists is as an analogue to the wear and tear suffered by physical books that eventually need replacing. I think one of the most destructive tendencies inherent to the publishing industry is not its resistance to electronic media, but its slavish insistence on making them exactly like physical media.

Instead of panicking over a perceived loss in revenues caused by books that no longer need to be replaced, publishers should be touting the non-physical nature of e-books as a tremendous boon: "You'll never need to replace this e-book! That means that rather than buy a new copy of the same book, you can spend the money you'll save on more of our e-books."

E-books don't take up physical shelf space, so the limiting factor that once forced a librarian to choose between replacing a popular title that's worn out and purchasing a different title—that is, space—no longer exists. More titles sold is good for everyone.

My rant is over for today, meine Autoren, but what do you think? Should publishers be able to cap library loans, and if so, is 26 a reasonable number?

Sales Update: The Music Memoir

Looking to finally secure that six-figure advance with a Big Six publisher, mes auteurs? If so, look no further! All you need is the following:

• An international reputation as a major musician spanning at least three decades;
• A decently talented ghostwriter.

In short, music memoirs are in, primarily because (quoting the article's anonymous New York City publishing executive), "they're pretty easy to produce, and with an already built-in audience, fairly cost-effective." That is to say: publishers are convinced people will buy a memoir by a musician, so they pour more money into the marketing and sale of the book, thereby creating the literary equivalent of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Well, sort of. Not quite. Partially.

Publishers are right that people will buy musicians' memoirs, which (à mon avis) is because they (musicians, not publishers) seem to suffer disproportionately from drug addiction, problems with alcohol, mental illness, hilarious/absurd/numerous sexual escapades, &c &c, and we Americans love us some sex and death in our entertainment. True, the publishers' commitment to higher advances and (in some cases) production values guarantees that they'll work harder (read: spend even more money) to move copies of the book through the register, but at the risk of repeating myself: publishers cannot create a bestseller without the reading public's cooperation.

While some musicians (and celebrities in general) are qualified to write their own memoirs, most aren't (and even those who are usually don't): instead, ghostwriters are hired to write their book for them. I'm actually not quite sure how the advance and royalty structure works for ghostwriters, but I imagine they're contractually entitled to a cut of the book's profits. Any agents and/or ghostwriters in the house: please feel free to enlighten me/us in the comments!

Now, to come full circle: if you don't have the aforementioned multi-platinum international rockstar of mystery career and qualified ghostwriter, all is not lost! You just have to get permission to write the authorized biography of some such celebrity. Which, I guess, might be difficult if you don't already have some sort of "in" and/or a proven publication record in journalism, memoir, creative nonfiction, &c.

Yes, well, while you ponder the implications of becoming a world-famous musician and/or journalist who covers world-famous musicians, I'm going to go pre-order Keith Richards' Life. To the Internet!

The Year in Review: Part 5

The! World! of! Tomorrow!

Once again exhibiting his uncanny ability to read my mind (or simply read the same news sources), Nathan posted yesterday about Mike Shatzkin's post on the future of book stores. I largely agree with Shatzkin (his original article can be found here), and Nathan's assessment (though bleak) is pretty spot-on. To quote:

These last few years have been incredibly tumultuous for the industry. The recession and the Great Digital Transition combined forces to wallop the industry, and the effects are everywhere: shrinking lists, closing imprints, shuttering indie stores, a vanishing mid-list, and belt-tightening across the board.

However, whereas Shatzkin seems to have relatively little hope that publishers will be able to adapt to the massive transformation entailed by the "Great Digital Transition," I think Nathan and I are in the same, slightly more optimistic boat. People will still buy (possibly even more) books. The paper side won't disappear completely. A lot of things (writers writing, agents agenting, editors editing) will remain the same.

Thus, in the one, the only, Bullet-o-Vision™:

· In my opinion, e-books will comprise 50% of the market by 2015. I wouldn't be surprised if it were more (up to 70%).

· In my experience, e-book consumers are never "between books"; that is, unlike with physical books, they don't finish a book and take any sort of break. Even if they take a month to read the next one, they generally start it as soon as the previous book is finished. I think this behavior, along with the lower cost and greater convenience of e-books, is behind the booming sales numbers we're seeing.

· As the cost of e-readers decreases (read: falls to around the $100 mark across the board), e-book sales will sharply increase.

· The vast majority of e-book readers also buy physical books (and more of those who are "physical books only" are making the transition every day), so I think publishers would be wise to bundle the two products together at a discounted rate, at least for now.

· I don't think the transition to e-books will democratize publishing any more than Gutenberg's press did 560 years ago.


What do you think, mes auteurs?

The Middle Way: The Indie Publisher

I was reading the newest issue of Poets & Writers, cats & kittens (yes, I do occasionally fancy myself a poet or writer, depending on the time of day and the number of rejections I have received that week), when I happened upon an article by Steve Almond in which he discusses the merits and drawbacks of traditional publishing, self-publishing, and—in a surprisingly zen moment—the "perfect compromise" (I'm calling it the Middle Way) of going with an independent publisher.

To quote Almond, you don't get the "bloated marketing departments and built-in publishing delays" of big-six publishing, and to quote me, you don't get the "one-(wo)man marketing department and stomach ulcers" of running the whole show yourself. I'll reiterate: every good writer needs an editor. It's in your best interest to have someone who has experience editing, marketing, and selling books on your side, regardless of how big (or small) the operation.

Now, to be fair—and I strongly suggest that you DNTTAH* unless you, like Almond, have a proven record of writing ability and are only "cut[ting] the cord with traditional publishing" (again, Almond's words) because of a question of salability, not ability in general—Almond does decide to pursue self-publishing in this article. However, Almond also has a huge amount of experience in this industry and is making a well-informed decision that 90% of authors (not necessarily you, gentle readers) are not well prepared to make due to lack of experience, research, &c. This is why I'm raising the possibility of the independent publisher as an alternative between The Publishing Machine™ and the (oft perilous) road of self-publishing.

Independent publishers are generally more open to experimental fiction, literary fiction, and poetry than most big-time publishers, so if it's simply a question of readership as opposed to quality of the MS, an indie may be right for you. You'll almost certainly still get a dedicated editor, a marketing department, an art department, and even a sales rep, and many indies sell books to retailers like Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon via distributors like Baker & Taylor. You'll have a lot more control over the finished product than you would at a larger house, but neither will you have to go it alone with regard to the business side of things. Many smaller houses offer higher royalty rates in exchange for lower advances, so if your goal is to someday land a publishing deal with a larger company, it may look better if you take the indie route and earn out your advance rather than struggle to earn back a larger advance from a larger house or struggle to demonstrate profitable sales figures via self-publication.

You tell me, though, fair readers: would you consider an independent publisher a good compromise between the big houses and self-publishing? Would you prefer a more close-knit group of industry professionals backing your book to a larger one, or to the oft-solo adventure of selling your book yourself?



* "Do Not Try This At Home"

11,000 Rejections on the Wall, 11,000 Rejections

We've talked about the long odds in this industry from time to time, bros and she-bros, and so I thought I'd use this Monday morning to 1.) give you a realistic idea of how difficult it is to get your work published, and 2.) relate an inspirational, true story of one man, his 100+ published short stories, and his, uh... 11,100 rejections.

Meet Jacob M. Appel. Dude is a doctor lawyer astronaut bounty hunter spy with seven degrees—an AB, two AMs, an MPhil, an MFA, an MD, and a JD, from places like Brown, Columbia, NYU, and Harvard. How he somehow fit thirty years of elite schooling into his life by the age of 37 is a mystery to me. (Incidentally, yesterday was his birthday. Happy birthday, Jacob!)

Sidebar: I actually don't know Jacob in real life, so I suppose my wishing him a happy birthday is somewhat creepy. Hopefully he won't be freaked out when I friend him on Facebook.

The point of this story, though: Jacob has published short stories in some of the most prestigious literary journals and magazines in the country, but he also garnered over eleven thousand rejections in the process. How many have you acquired, gentle reader? One? Ten? A hundred? If so, keep at it, because until you top Jacob's high score, I don't want to hear about you quitting the writing racket. When you're a fancy published author one, two, five, or fifteen years down the line, you can use collages of your rejection slips as the endpapers of your book, or at the very least give it a delightfully snarky title. No self-publishing, though; we all know how I feel about that.

If you've got any uplifting stories of literary success despite myriad rejections, feel free to share them in the comments!

An Apple a Day Keeps the Pirates Away

If you missed me yesterday, 1.) you read too many Internet blogs (or, at the very least, too much of this one—not that I don't appreciate it!), and 2.) it was because much of the industry (unlike most used car salesmen) had President's Day off, so I wasn't in the office.

So!

As we all probably figured would be the case, publishers are already becoming wary of Apple's shiny new iPad and iBook store. Some are wary of Apple's hesitance to share consumer data, but most of those publishers are newspaper publishers, so their opinions don't really matter. I mean, come on, I don't even remember the last time I read a physical newspaper.

All kidding aside, though, there are some hang-ups in the real (read: book) publishing world as well. (Okay, now all kidding aside.) Apple plans to employ its tried-and-true FairPlay DRM in the iBook store in an attempt to ward off piracy. Whether this will be a permanent affair or whether it will eventually be phased out à la Apple's game plan for music remains to be seen.

What do you think, gentle readers? Should book DRM be run the same way as music DRM? Would (or do) you subscribe to e-magazines and e-newspapers? And when Apple and Amazon engage in the clash of the titans that will PROBABLY END THE WORLD, whose side will you be on?

And Then There Were Three

(Image courtesy of Gizmodo)

In the continued battle over the price of e-books, Hachette has joined Macmillan and HarperCollins in adopting Apple's agency model over the existing wholesale model. (You can read their letter to agents here.) That leaves Simon & Schuster, Penguin, and Random House (not pictured) as the odd men (and women!) out.

First, I've received a few e-mails from you asking what, exactly, the agency model is. In short, it's a sales model predicated on the theory that the publisher is selling directly to consumers, and that any agent (oftentimes a retailer like Amazon) conducting a sale on the publisher's behalf is entitled to a commission on that sale (under Apple's model, roughly 30%).

The wholesale model, on the other hand, is based on the theory that the retailer is the only one selling directly to customers, so publishers are essentially out of the picture once they sell their goods to said retailer (usually at a 50% or so discount). This means that the retailer can then turn around and sell their books at pretty much whatever price they want (in Amazon's case, $9.99). Amazon lost money under this model because they were buying new e-books from publishers at roughly half the retail price ($15 or so). This was fine with Amazon, since they were selling books as loss-leaders for their Kindle devices and building significant mind and market share while doing it.

While there are some, like TechCrunch blogger Paul Carr, who believe the agency model is an anti-competitive throwback to the UK's Net Book Agreement of 1900, most believe that with publishers earning more money per sale and shelling out less in terms of overhead (printing, binding, shipping, &c), the agency model could translate into significantly higher profits for houses and, in turn, higher royalties for authors (no guarantees as yet, though).

What do you think, mes auteurs? Is the agency model the way of the future?

A Word on Awards

With the recent announcement of the National Book Critics Circle Award finalists, I thought the time might be ripe for a brief discussion of literary awards.

Some of you may have wondered, in the process of querying various agents, when and whether it's appropriate to mention any awards you might have won for your writing. Since I don't have time for an awesome flowchart, I'll just give you a few general "Do"s and "Don't"s:

Do:

· Mention any significant awards you've won for your writing (anything from placing in contests judged at conferences to Pushcart Prizes). Obviously if you've won a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a Hugo, an Edgar, &c, list it. (Although quite honestly, if you have, you probably already have representation.)

· Mention any significant awards you've won for things outside your writing so long as they're relevant to your topic. (E.g., if you're writing a medical memoir, mentioning your professional qualifications and awards is not only germane, it's expected.)

· Mention any previous publications you have, excluding self-published work or work published in a magazine or anthology for which you make editorial decisions. Try to stick to short stories (mentioning where your poetry or journalism has appeared might be helpful if they're really well-known markets, but otherwise, it's just superfluous). Note: if you're submitting non-fiction, any non-fiction or journalistic credits you've got are fair game.

Don't:

· Mention any writing awards that are not a big deal. This includes that ninth-place award you got in your hometown (population: 200) newspaper for your short story about a cat and a dog who become bros despite the biological and social forces working against them.

· Mention any writing awards you won as a child (unless you are still a child or that award is a big deal; see above). No one cares that you got a "Most Thoughtful Essay" award in fourth grade for your three-paragraph treatise on Betsy Ross.

· Try to trick the agent. (Fun fact: everyone in the industry knows that anyone with $50 can nominate themselves for a Pulitzer. Telling us you're nominated won't fool us.)

· Mention where you earned your undergraduate or graduate degree(s), except maybe an MFA, and even then, be judicious. Agents are interested in your book, not the school(s) you attended. (This is not the case if your professional credentials are part of your platform; see above.)

In short: if you've won an award or otherwise earned some kind of recognition that you believe sets you apart from 90% of the crowd, include it. Otherwise, don't put it in your query; when push comes to shove (and it will, gentle authors), agents and editors only care about your novel and your willingness to promote it (in that order). No more, no less.

The 6... Er, 500 Million Dollar Man

I found the comments in yesterday's post particularly enlightening, so thanks to all of you who posted about where your industry news comes from. I'm pleased to report that I've added Bookslut and Author! Author! to the blogroll section of PMN. (Sidebar: please feel free to always recommend new news sources to me, since I'm constantly looking to learn as much about this crazy industry as you are.)

If you haven't been reading the New York Times recently (and honestly, who could blame you? It's effectively turned into a lifestyle magazine), they've got a nifty article on the book machine that is James Patterson. Some fun facts, in tried-and-true patented Bullet-O-Vision™:

· Since 2006, one out of every seventeen novels purchased in the U.S. has been written by James Patterson. This includes 51 NYT best sellers, 35 of which went to #1.

· His recent book sales (in dollars) exceed those of John Grisham, Dan Brown, and Stephen King. Combined.

· According to Forbes magazine, Patterson apparently earned $500 million dollars for Hachette over the past two years. (The publisher disputes these numbers.)

· Patterson's current average: nine new hardcovers per year.

· In order to keep up this manic pace, Patterson has a stable of co-authors (at least five) whom he pays out-of-pocket to write many of his books (based on his outlines, of course).

Now, before you rush off to build your own sprawling media empire, it's important to note two things:

1.) You are not James Patterson. Repeat after me: "I am not James Patterson."

2.) Patterson has been steadily building his own massive media presence over the past 35 years, and while he did start off quite modestly, he has succeeded because he's been so relentless about marketing himself.

If you read the article, you'll see just how far Patterson goes and has gone to promote himself and his books: he's involved in virtually every step of the process, effectively serving as a member of his own publishing team. While you almost certainly won't be expected (or even necessarily allowed) in your own publisher's marketing and sales meetings at first, I cannot stress enough the importance of taking interest in the financial aspect of your career. Think about your current day job: do you ignore your paycheck, your stock options, your 401(k) statements? Being a writer who desires to make a living as such but eschews the business side of the job is no different.

In short: writing is art, ladies and gents, but if you want to make a living doing it, it is also necessarily a business. Be relentless. Take an active interest in the advertising, sales, and marketing aspects of your book(s). I'm not asking you to let your writing take a back seat to the, shall we say, "pimping"—I'm just asking you to be on your own publicity team.