Milestones

We're getting close, Peeps! The Winds of Heaven and Earth is about halfway through the editing process, and I'm wrapping up the formatting for the print version this week. Work on the sequel, The Dark Paths of the World--which stands at about 24,000 of the projected 150,000 words--is on hold while I put the finishing touches on WHE.  We're looking at a September launch date for both print and Kindle versions.

My big news is: I'm launching a website tomorrow. It will be my Grand Central Station for all my online author presences, like this blog, my Facebook Fan page, Twitter, etc. But it will also feature showcases of my writing, a bio, contact pages, and links to where you can find my work--and most importantly, a showcase and samples from my books and novellas. I'll post again tomorrow with the website address.

I will be providing a link to a sample excerpt from WHE--more than 100 pages from the beginning of the novel, free, in a pdf format.  If you like what you read, please start the buzz.  September is just around the corner.

Switching gears: I had the pleasure this past weekend to scuba certify (I'm a PADI intructor) local radio personality Preston Elliot and his family. Preston has been the anchor of the long-running morning show "Preston and Steve" on the iconic classic rock station WMMR (93.3 FM) in Philadelphia for as long as I can remember. On Monday morning. Preston and the other members of the show talked about his experiences and scuba for a good twenty minutes, and I got a nice plug.

You can hear the show's podcast here; the scuba discussion starts around the 1 hour 23 minute mark.

http://prestonandsteve.libsyn.com/daily-feed-07-29-13

See you tomorrow when I launch the website.

On the Road and Going Deep

Just a short post; in the North Carolina Outer Banks on the road to Beaufort, NC for a long weekend of wreck diving.  For those of you who don't know--but could probably infer from my ubiquitous profile pic all over social media--I'm an avid scuba diver and a PADI instructor; I've been diving for over 25 years. (Yeah, since I was 10, right?) I love the thrill of seeing a wreck emerge from the gloom on a descent--it never fails to raise the hairs on the back of my neck.  There's something about seeing a ship on the ocean floor and knowing the history behind her, and in the case of natural wrecks (there are many sunk deliberately as artificial reefs and scuba diver attractions), the story behind that particular ship's demise.

The Dark Paths of the World (DPW), the sequel to The Winds of Heaven and Earth (WHE), stands at 20,000 words, but I'm setting it aside for now. My editor, Rebecca T. Dickson, has started throwing chapter revisions for WHE back over the wall and I'm head-down on that incorporating her edits. We have 5 chapters in the can now (of 55), and I may post the first few chapters online in the near future as a teaser.

A publication date for WHE is hard to extrapolate, but a decent guess based on the current revision rate would put it around early September. I'll be doing a giveaway promotion for a free autographed paper copy (an Advanced Reader Copy, ARC) on Goodreads in the near future, so if you're not a Goodreads member, sign up for a free account.  (The book will be available on Amazon in 6" x 9" trade paperback and Kindle eBook format.)

If you're a reader, Goodreads is a great site to get and give book recommendations and stay plugged in on updates and news about your favorite authors and genre, and it's also a social media site where you rub elbows with friends with similar interests.

Now time to blow bubbles . . .

Help me build my audience and readership.  Please follow me on Twitter @StephenMHolak, and Like my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/StephenMHolak. For news about my releases visit my Amazon Author page https://www.amazon.com/author/stephenmholak and subscribe to the "Stay Up to Date" link in the right hand column; you'll be sent an email to notify you of new works as they're published.

A Step Forward, a Step Back: On Stephen King's New Non-eBook

The publishing industry continues to change.  The ebb and flow of that change is nicely showcased in a few headlines lifted from today's Digital Book World's daily newsletter.

A step forward: Big-Sixer Simon and Schuster hired an ex-AOL-er to fill the newly created position of head of eBook business development and strategy.  Hard to criticize that move; it's an acknowledgement of the landscape change and an effort to get in step--or even ahead of--the paradigm shifts that digital publishing technology has triggered.  This is the same company that gave self-published dystopian science fiction writer Hugh Howey of Wool fame a print rights contract while allowing him to keep his eBook rights, a hybrid trend that's continuing to grow, but an admirable and forward-thinking step for one of the industry stalwarts.  I'll take one small potshot here: the digital publishing wave broke . . . when?

A step back: Stephen King announced in the Wall Street Journal that his new book, Joyland, will *not* be available as an eBook. This is presented as "an attempt to drive traffic to brick-and-mortar bookstores."  I watched  the WSJ newscast on the topic, and buried in the dialog is what appears to be a more valid reason: the book is published by a small crime and mystery press, and by Steve signing with them for this release, he can give a little guy a welcome shot in the arm.

Come on, Steve.  Nixing the digital version of the book in an effort to help bookstores is like buying tapes instead of DVDs or digital downloads in an effort to keep VCRs alive.  King is a big gorilla, but he's not going to save B & N or Mom and Pa's Books with this gesture.  The changing business model will force a marched evolution on those businesses; those that adapt will survive, if any survive at all.

This is coals to Newcastle, buddy.

And on the small-press-only gesture?  Admirable . . . but hey, don't you think they would reap enormous benefits if they went through the not-very-complicated effort of publishing a digital version of the book?  Help me out, Peeps; I'm scratching my head here.

On the home front: as I alluded to in my last post, I've settled on an editor for The Winds of Heaven and Earth.  This morning I ended my search and signed a contract with Rebecca T. Dickson, aka "the Beckster."  The feedback I received from the client list she supplied me with sealed the deal: not just high praise for her technical competence and vision, but how she brutally, honestly, relentlessly kicked their asses and forced them to dig deep and not just produce a better book, but to become a better writer while preserving each author's unique voice.  As I told the Beckster when I signed, I'm looking forward to our association like one looks forward to a visit to the dentist for a root canal: I know I'll be much better off afterwards . . .

I'm about halfway through the second draft now; I expect to ship it off for the first editorial pass in about three weeks.  Stay tuned.

Help me build my audience and readership.  Please follow me on Twitter @StephenMHolak, and Like my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/StephenMHolak

Another Fist Pump--and an Editor

According to numbers complied by Digital Book World this week, not only are 6 of the top 10 bestselling eBooks in the .99 to 2.99 category self-published, 6 of the top 25 of *all* eBook price categories are self-published.  The landscape continues to evolve, and I predict that by this time next year 80% of the eBooks under 3.99 will be self-published, and perhaps a third of the overall digital bestsellers will be as well.  And I may be underestimating.

On the home front, revision work on The Winds of Heaven and Earth is still progressing smoothly, with about 40% of the first edit / second draft completed (which is also why my blogs are getting shorter and less frequent; I don't have any deadlines, other than a self-imposed one, but I'm in serious crunch mode.)  The manuscript is still hovering at around 160,000 words, but I expect that to change in the downward direction after another revision and a pass through professional editing.  Maybe.

Which leads me to the next item:

What I am really excited about is that I may have found my editor.  We're still discussing and feeling each other out,  but I've been looking for the right person for a while, a person who was not just a copy editor, but someone who understood my writing, who let me keep my voice, but at the same time saw the trees and the forests and would push me for not just a better book but to be a better writer.  And someone who I could work with for an entire career.

Serendipitously I stumbled across a gem, highly recommended by clients, and I reached out the other day and got a sample edit of my opening scene.  Bingo.  I'll release the name and more detail after we close the deal, but again, I could not be more excited over my discovery.

Later, Peeps, film at 11, all that.

Regards
Steve

Short and Sweet

Just checking in with a WIP update and a few comments on the industry.

The Winds of Heaven and Earth is coming along nicely, although at times I vacillate between "this is shit" and this is pretty good stuff."  I'm about a third of the way through editing the first draft into a second, and I'm busy in parallel with re-writing the first chapter; I was never completely happy with it.  I think the release date is going to slip from June to July, but that's OK--it'll be ready when it's  ready.

On the publishing front, I Tweeted a fist pump last week about the state of the top ten digital titles, but never followed up with a blog post: five of the top ten titles were self published.  Take that, gatekeepers!

This week, Digital Book World reports that six of the top twenty titles are self-published, still an amazing accomplishment, and something not many people would have bet on even a year ago (except for maybe Joe Konrath); that's hugely encouraging for writers toiling away on current projects.  Only a select few will have a shot at that measure of success, but that's true for any profession or endeavor.  The real take away is that the barriers formerly imposed by the Big Six no longer matter, and that readers are free to make their own judgements about the merit of your work. More and more readers and writers are discovering that the supposed value-add of the gatekeepers of the Big Six is nothing more than an illusion; authors create the product, not the industry.

 You can't win if you don't play.  Get cracking.

Ball of Confusion

Even though the horse is still dead, I'm continuing to beat the hell out of it.  I'll keep this short, (or maybe not, come to think of it) because it's just a minor variation on the theme that J.A. Konrath, (in fact, he posted on this same subject this morning) Kristen Lamb, and a host of others have been bleating for a while: not only are legacy publishers getting hammered by the wave of change sweeping the book publishing industry, the best-selling name authors who are their bread and butter are clueless as well--panicked  and out of touch with the reality that the midlist and Indie writers experience down in the trenches. They are more concerned with protecting themselves and the publishers that feed them than they are in helping or supporting their fellow authors.  They're well-fed and fattened, and what they want most desperately is to turn back the clock to the status quo that existed for so long, a return to the days where the Big Six were the gatekeepers and books existed only on paper.  And maybe getting rid of that Internet thing that seems to be causing everyone a lot of trouble too.  Where did the god damned cheese go?  I want it back.

In Salon yesterday morning, best-selling author James Patterson was interviewed about his call for a government bailout of the book industry.  He doesn't seem to understand the issues; more than anything, he appears completely dazed and confused over what is  going on.  I'll let the article, which centers around the desperate ads Patterson placed in the New York Times Book Review and Publisher's Weekly last weekend, speak for itself.

What struck me was the sheer desperation of his plea.  But what struck me the most was this: he has no idea of what to ask for.  He has absolutely no solution, and he admits this several times in his post.

Dig this: "E-books are fine and dandy, but it’s all happening so quickly, and I don’t think anyone thought through the consequences of having many fewer bookstores, of libraries being shut down or limited, of publishers going out of business — possibly in the future, many publishers going out of business."

"I haven’t thought about it but I’m sure there are things that can be done. There might be tax breaks, there might be limitations on the monopolies in the book business. We haven’t gotten into laws that should or shouldn’t be done in terms of the internet. I’m not sure what needs to happen, but right now, nothing’s happening."

And the most pathetic piece: "My solutions to this point are the other things i’m doing, and it’s a lot. In terms of the big picture, yeah, if I’m gonna see Obama tomorrow — if i could see the president, I’m not sure what I’d say — because he’d say what do you want me to do? I think that’s the stage we’re at. The stage we need to get to, something needs to get done. Let’s go the next stage."

He states he believes it's the publishing industry that produces "enduring classics," (ironically forgetting the author), and says that "its power will be gravely foreshortened, and the number of classics limited, by  attenuated publishing and bookselling industries . . . I don’t think we can be the country we’d like to be without literature."

My gut reaction to all this isn't anger, but embarrassment and pity.  The poor Luddite somehow equates technology advance and the publishing industry paradigm shift to the end of literature of we know it.

The numbers show otherwise.  More people are reading today than ever before, and the recent best-selling successes of self-published authors shows what can happen when self-imposed gatekeepers get out of the way and let authors write what they want and connect to audiences that embrace what they have to say.

Coming on the heels of Authors' Guild president Scott Turow's idiotic and widely-panned Op-Ed article in the New York Times last week, it simply shows how insulated from reality the authors at the top of the food chain are.

I'll say it again: all the noise coming from the industry Big Names are in defense of the status quo that has taken care of them for so long; there isn't a single sincere note sounded anywhere by any of them supporting the authors outside of their exclusive country club.

Wanna take a guess on how much Jimmy-boy earned last year from his buddies in the ivory tower?

Try $94 million.  You think he has skin in the game?  Yo, James: why don't you fork up some dough to bailout your bed partners?

A government bailout?  Please.  James, you want to bail out a short-sighted, greedy self-serving industry that shows not only a history of myopic behavior, but one that still refuses to get its head out of its ass?

Maybe the problem is that there are too many heads stuck in that ass to remove, without some serious surgery.

Dude, get an Internet connection, will ya?

First Draft Finished, Random Ramblings

The first draft of The Winds of Heaven and Earth is in the bag and weighs in at 160,000 words.  I'm spending the next few days going through and just reading it as a linear story (and correcting obvious typos and errors) before I start on the second draft.  It's an incredibly good feeling to reach this point, because I *love* editing and re-writing; in my mind the hard part is done, even though there is a lot to fix and work on.

And now for something completely different.

As a science fiction fan, a child of the space age, a fan of and a huge promoter of science and science education (my daughter is a PhD marine scientist), I noticed a trend coalesce last week with several announcements in the aerospace industry.

The move to space privatization is picking up steam, and NASA's role is becoming increasingly . . . not marginalized, but rather evolving into a supporting role in the manned flight and space industry.  Their primary role, now and in the future, is clearly in the slot of robotic science research and exploration, rather than cutting-edge trailblazing of human frontiers.

Private industry now launches satellites, supplies the International Space Station, will take the lead from Russia in the near future on shuttling humans back and forth to the Station, and will likely accomplish not only a human flyby of Mars first, but establish a colony there and on the Moon decades before any government agency on earth does, with deep-pockets former space tourist Denis Tito announcing a 2018 two-person flyby attempt, and Dutch startup Mars One planning a 2023 colonization initiative funded by reality TV income.

In addition, there are several corporations taking the lead in the potentially lucrative asteroid-mining business, with multiple startups announcing their future plans over the past few months.

NASA's role will--and should--be in the arena for scientific research, with continued programs like robotic probes of the outer solar system and space telescope programs to search for exoplanets around other stars and potential identification of life-bearing worlds around those distant suns.  Private, commercial companies will continue to transition to the human exploration and resource exploration roles, similar to the pattern from centuries ago as the New World and Asian spheres were opened up by private industry after the initial exploratory expeditions were launched and funded by European governments.

In other words, the government functions as scout and target-setter, and private initiatives follow through.  This is a model that has deep historical precedent, and it's encouraging that space exploration has reached this point.

As a member of the generation that watched Neil Armstrong's first steps onto the surface of the moon as a child, I'm am continually amazed that over forty years have passed (and Neil's death) without any forward progress; in my opinion, and the opinion of many, we've regressed.  It a sad fact that it was political willpower in the context of the Cold War with the Soviet Union that launched the Space Age and propelled man to the moon; once that goal was achieved and the war ended, that will flagged and the public and government lost interest.

Now, commercial interests have picked up the baton.  Is that the ideal?  Not really, but it has precedent and moves things forward; and although some of us may not see human footprints on Mars in our lifetimes, at least we're moving forward to the long-term need of getting humankind out of this fragile cradle we're living in, and dispersed among the stars.  That is the only way to ensure the long-term survival of our species.  If the world's governments and political leaders--and even the general public--don't have the will and the interest, at least, hopefully, we'll get there someday, somehow.

For first-liner updates from me, please follow me on Twitter and Facebook as StephenMHolak.

A Trend: Another Self-Published Author Hits #1

A few weeks ago, I posted about Jennifer L. Armentrout's success with Wait for You, the first self-published book to hit number one on the digital bestseller list.

This morning, Digital Book World announced in their daily newsletter that The Bet by Rachel Van Dyken was the best-selling eBook in the U.S. last week.  The Bet is self-published.

Looks like a trend is kicking in here, Peeps.  Now that the Big Six gatekeepers no longer can bar the doors to publication, more and more readers are voting with their wallets about the quality of independently-published fiction.  We've all read a number of anecdotal success stories about authors rejected by traditional publishers having success in the self-publishing arena, but the success trend is not only growing in frequency, but in magnitude, which should be an inspiration to authors and aspiring authors everywhere.  Put in the hard work and let the readers be the judges.

On the home front, The Winds of Heaven and Earth is sitting just short of 160,000 words, and I *swear* I will wrap the first draft this week.

I've done some work on the next book in the trilogy, The Dark Paths of the World, and even have an early cover concept.

What I'm finding interesting is, even though The Winds of Heaven and Earth is in early draft, there are seeds taking root that's already propelling the plot and momentum of the next story.  I already have the first chapter of DPW written, even though its predecessor is still a work in progress.

One final note before I wrap. I've seen a recent spike in sales for A Fairy for Bin Laden, which I attribute to my growing Twitter (@StephenMHolak) audience.  If you don't already follow me there, please add me, and a Like on my Facebook Page would be appreciated as well.

Now back to work.

The Best of Times . . .

Before I switch over to the main point of this post, I'll just throw out a little "works in progress" update.

The Winds of Heaven and Earth is flying off the pen; I'm north of 150,000 words now and expect to wrap the first draft of that in about a week or 10,000 more words or so.  That said, remember Hemingway's famous perspective on the state of an early manuscript: "The first draft of anything is shit."  True dat; when I look back at prose I wrote over a year ago, I cringe.  But it's raw materiel, and I force myself to think of it this way: I've just about finished excavating the marble that I'll now carve a statue of David from with my editing chisel. Or at least, his oversize penis.

(Clearly, this is a poor day for metaphor work, so maybe a bit of outlining is on the docket for the afternoon.)

I've also completed a detailed outline of the second book in the trilogy, The Dark Paths of the World, and written the first chapter of that installment (long story, but a scene I wrote near the end of The Winds of Heaven and Earth jumped all over me as the perfect opening for DPW, so I did some plot shuffling), and an rough outline for a children's book called Tinker's Chance, about a fifth-grader who discovers his principal is an evil robot who plans to replace the school's teachers with computers.  TC won't be a graphic novel, but I'm thinking heavily illustrated; we'll see.

Shifting back to our regularly scheduled program, Digital Book World's  daily newsletter (if you are an Indie author, or dabble at all in the eBook medium, I strongly urge you to subscribe to that free newsletter) showcased an interesting point / counterpoint today on the health of the current climate for authors, in light of all the tumultuous changes happening in the publishing industry..

On one side of the coin was lawyer, bestselling writer, and Author's Guild president Scott Turow.  In his April 7th Op-Ed article "The Slow Death of the American Author" in the  New York Times, Turow laments about (and somehow mixes): the recent Supreme Court decision to allow the importation and resale of foreign editions of American works, the minuscule eBook royalties doled out to authors already under contract to the Big Six, digital piracy, Google's actions ten years ago when it scanned and made available for free out-of-copyright or ambiguously copyrighted books, library book and eBook lending practices, and Amazon's recent patent to re-sell eBooks as a "sky is falling" invocation of doom and gloom.

Oh yeah.  He closes with: "Last October, I visited Moscow and met with a group of authors who described the sad fate of writing as a livelihood in Russia. There is only a handful of publishers left, while e-publishing is savaged by instantaneous piracy that goes almost completely unpoliced. As a result, in the country of Tolstoy and Chekhov, few Russians, let alone Westerners, can name a contemporary Russian author whose work regularly affects the national conversation.

The Constitution’s framers had it right. Soviet-style repression is not necessary to diminish authors’ output and influence. Just devalue their copyrights."

Somebody, quick, hand me a tissue.  Scott, jeez, I'm sorry you contracted-to-big-publisher best-selling authors are getting screwed out of eBook royalties.  Take it up with your agent.  (Or have your agent call Hugh Howey or Bella Andre's agents.)

Or maybe as president of the Author's Guild it's time to crawl out of the Big Six's bed and use your clout to help the little guy, ya think?

On the sunny side of the street was Jeremy Greenfield's article in Forbes "How the Authors Guild Is Kind of Like the NRA and Why Scott Turow Is Wrong About Authors", which, as you might guess from the title, strongly disagrees with Turow.

He goes on to question (identically to an issue I also had with Turow's piece), "So, who is Turow defending with his New York Times editorial? The small percentage of authors who benefited the most from the old publishing paradigm and who have not found a way to benefit from the new and the equally small group of authors who would have been their successors if publishing had stayed the same."

Spot on, though to be fair I believe Greenfield's comparison of the Author's Guild to the NRA is a stretch, although clever.

Greenfield goes on to cover other stuff, namely the hit non-fiction authors are taking in the new climate, but his main takeaway is the perspective I agree with: now is probably the best time in the industry's history to be an author.  When paradigms shift, there are always winners and losers, but I believe in this case that the former heavily outweigh the latter.

The main barriers to club entrance--the artificial judgment practices of the old publishing industry stalwarts--are gone, and an author can write and publish with the confidence that if his work is good, it *will* find an audience.  No one, now, can keep that from you.  Except you.

Now stop reading blogs and online articles and go write.

Amazon Marries Goodreads: What does it Mean?

I'm usually not real savvy about figuring out what things like yesterday's Amazon acquisition of book review site Goodreads means--at least until somebody draws me a picture.  But after a day or so of watching the boards and reading blogs and getting the sense of the Twitter zeitgeist, a few things have become clear.

One consensus emerging is that Amazon will *probably* not mess with GR too much; this has been their M.O. in the past in the M & A space, and doing so will run counter to the spin that's been coming out of Amazon and GR in the past 24-plus hours, such as "It’s incredibly important to us that Goodreads remain a platform for all kinds of readers to use, whether they’re reading paper or on their Nook or Kindle or whatever." (GR CEO Otis Chandler)

Authors and readers on the Kindle Boards seem split about the union.  One powerful voice that falls squarely in the "this is a good thing for books" camp is ground-breaking best-selling Indie-turned-traditionally-published WOOL author Hugh Howey, who blogged on his site : "I can think of a dozen ways this acquisition might make my life better as both a reader and an author. Right now, I spend a lot of time on both sites in both capacities. My guess is that we won’t see many changes at all. I’m betting that the real acquisition here is all the data behind the scenes. The algorithms that tell me what to buy (and almost always nail it) are going to get better. The social networks that feed my reading habit are going to get stronger. The people who helped make Goodreads awesome are going to get richer. And the people at Amazon, who I have gotten to know this past year and who to a man and woman love the fuck out of some books, are going to keep trying to get the right ones in the hands of readers."

What this seems to be about is discovery.  Goodreads and Amazon were the top two web presences for both review and discovery, and now they've moved into the same house; the synergy should be powerful.

And another theme emerging is that this is another brilliant body-shot-to-the-gut at Barnes and Noble. Digital Book World passed on this assessment from a publishing consultant named Thad McIlroy this morning:  “Out of all the commenting about books, Goodreads was the most powerful ecosystem for recommending what you read next and Amazon was a close second. Now it’s just Amazon . . . [w]ith the collapse of the Nook [B&N's] lost the online game and we just have to count out the final steps.”

Big gorillas make people uneasy; rightly so.  But authors that have inside knowledge and long experience with Jeff Bezos and Amazon seem comfortable and assured that, yes, it's just business, and business is cold-hearted sometimes, but in the end the culture at Amazon is strongly pro-reader, pro-book, and pro-author, and unless you collect your paycheck from BN, the pluses will likely far outweigh the minuses.

Time will tell.  Film at 11.  All that good stuff.

. . . That, and 3 Billion Will Buy You a Cuppa Joe

Random House's daddy Bertelsmann released its annual report today, which included a piece on the stunning success and corporate bottom-line impact of last year's runaway best seller Fifty Shades of Grey (you may have heard of it.)

The report served up three lessons learned from the Fifty Shades event: new strategies, speed, and, (I'm not making this up) "blocking and tackling" (“Instinct and intuition will continue to play a forward role in book publishing, but they go hand-in-hand with personal relationships, response time, maximizing digital and print delivery, operational excellence, and having strong creative teams.”) Whatever.

The "strategies" lesson acknowledges that the publisher must "look beyond traditional routes and consider different strategies when it comes to acquisitions.”   In other words, take a harder and closer look at up-and-coming Indie authors as they start to demonstrate some success--like Fifty Shades author E.L James did--and recruit them as corporate assets before their competitors do, or before all the profits go in the authors' pockets.

"Speed:" The report called this "an instance where a publisher acted swiftly to arrange a meeting with the author and her agent, and then just as quickly we structured a deal to bring the books to market as soon as possible.”  (Holy Shit!  This dirty little piece of Indie trash is selling like hotcakes and we want a piece of that!  Quick.  Git 'er, Ray.)

And we already covered the "blocking and tackling" corpo-jabber.  ("Personal Relationships."  Please.  That one cost me a nose full of Starbucks French Roast .)

It's important to note that these lessons were not humble acknowledgments of the paradigm shift taking place in the publishing world, and a bugle call for RH to lead the charge of the Big Six into a Brave New World, but rather a wake up, a strong cup of coffee intended to sober up the troops.

Peeps, Random House has raked in over three billion in revenue (four-hundred million profit) from Fifty Shades.  Imagine the corporate bottom line without that title and its sequels.  These lessons don't spring from concern for authors or an interest in making the publishing model more equitable for all the players in the industry.  Don't make it out to be anything more than it is.

Maybe I'm a cynic.  Maybe I'm the only one not eagerly watching for their "strong creative teams" to re-evaluate and establish warm and fuzzy "personal relationships" with authors with better contract terms for the writers who sweat blood to bring their marvelous stories to life for readers.

Yeah, like maybe the contract terms their new "digital imprints" tried to slip on us before John Scalzi told 'em where to stick 'em?

Sounds personal to me.

The Other Side of the Coin

My last few blog posts have centered around the dark side of the new Indie publishing world, the predatory practices of the new imprints that are popping up and trying to lure aspiring Indie authors into the woods, notably Random House's new "digital imprints" whose horrible contract terms were called out by John Scalzi, head of the SFWA in an open letter that went viral and brought down an f-ton of public wrath on RH.  RH quickly capitulated, offering somewhat better terms, but I warned that we all need to stay vigilant for these sharks, have our heads on a swivel, and look out for ourselves and fellow authors.

In this post, I want to call out the other side of the coin, one of the inspiring success stories that the new publishing model facilitates: the stunning home run hit by Jennifer L. Armentrout.

Indie (well, hybrid) author Armentrout's Wait for You, a young adult book which she self-published under the pen name J. Lynn, hit number 1 on the best seller lists a few weeks ago, and kept that position for two consecutive weeks on Digital Book World's eBook best-seller list.

Peeps, if you don't know this you should: Armentrout's book is the first self-published work to hit number 1.

Riding that wave, she signed a "high six-figure" deal for three books with HarperCollins.

If that doesn't inspire, I don't know what will.  Her book was rejected as "too risky" by traditional publishers, but she knew in her heart an audience existed for it, and she plugged away on her own and now she reaps the rewards of that work and determination.

In a few guest blogs last year I wrote about the new publishing model, and the demise of the gatekeepers that stood between the author and the reader.  I urged then, and I urge now, to write for yourself, stick with it, finish your project, edit it, get a great cover and draft a great book blurb and put it out there.  With a little marketing and word-of-mouth, it will find its audience and it it's good you'll gather some success.  No one can stop the reader from judging your works anymore--except yourself, if you don't publish.

Not everyone is going to see the success of a JA Konrath, or an Amanda Hocking, or a Hugh Howey, or a Jen Armentrout.  But your writing will find an audience if you publish it.  And no one can stop you--but you.

Now, while that fire burns bright, go write.

Well, We Might Have Chopped Off *A* Head . . .

Earlier this week, I posted a blog about the public letter wars between Random House and the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) over RH's new "digital imprint" and their horrible contract terms for eBook authors. I had an opportunity to ask best-selling Wool author Hugh Howey his thoughts on the conflict on Reddit, where he was hosting an AMA--Ask Me Anything--and he replied "Scalzi is a badass. Those contracts were bullshit. Good to see the power of some internet outrage making a change."

The change he is referring to is the public capitulation of RH to the pressure brought forth by SFWA and other authors. (John Scalzi is an author and president of the SFWA.)

As Wired.com reported on Thursday, "In the face of such upset, Random House announced on Tuesday that it would change its contracts, offering prospective authors a choice between a 50/50 profit share with no upfront money and a more traditional advance-plus-royalty model where authors receive some money prior to release, as well as 25 percent of whatever profits the title generates upon publication.

Whichever option is chosen, the Random House imprints will cover production and promotional costs  – although promotional costs above $10,000 will be shared between publisher and author in the profit-share model — and will receive publication rights throughout the world in all languages for the duration of copyright unless the digital release falls beneath a particular sales level — 300 copies in 12 months — in which case the author can request rights reversion."

Scalzi went on to say, "The goal here is not to be able to lift the bloodied head of Random House and boast we have taken a hit,” he said. “The goal here is to make sure that writers are being compensated fairly for work they have done and will do."

So this is good thing, right?  Yes it is.  Fist pump.

But.

As I said in my post, Random House's foray is just one sample of the many predators looking to lunch on new authors anxious to break into digital print.  SFWA later in the week reposted YA author Victoria Strauss's similar salvo on Writer Beware against PublishAmerica.

No one has relaxed his or her guard.  And no one should.  It's going to get worse before it gets better, and authors need to continue to stand their ground and fight these battles for themselves and fellow authors.

These victories are a good beginning.

Or, to paraphrase the late Robert Jordan, it's not the beginning, but it's a beginning.

A Many-Headed Beast Rises

Anyone in the writing or publishing business keeps a close eye on trending in the self publishing business (or "Indie" publishing, the current popular moniker), especially Indie authors like myself, and if they do, they should be aware of the disturbing events taking place in the past week or so, manifesting themselves in the public letter-war between the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) and Random House.

To recap, RH has launched four new "digital imprints," dedicated to eBook publishing: Loveswept (romance), Alibi (mystery/suspense) Hydra (SF/fantasy) and Flirt (college-age readers).  This is the latest poisonous mushroom to pop up in the fertile grounds around eBooks, digital publishing, and the Indie writers' movement.  They propose to "partner" with authors to publish their eBooks, taking on the traditional publisher role of editorial services, cover art, promotion, etc. You supply the creative content, sit back, we'll do the rest.

Hey.  Here'a lollipop--wanna go for a ride?  Get in.

Reading more closely--and this is what SFWA and a growing mob of horrified authors are objecting to--RH offers no advance on sales, and proposes to split net profits 50/50 with the author . . . after production costs.  So the services they're "offering" actually come out of the author's pocket, and it's pretty well acknowledged in the industry that accounting practices on those and other publisher costs are pretty fluid and fuzzy.  In case you missed it, I'll say it again: RH's offering to provide the traditional publisher services, but it comes out of the author's sales.  They call that "sharing the risks."  As SFWA states it: "[your] attempt to shift to the author costs customarily borne by the publisher is, simply, outrageous and egregious."

Ya think?

SFWA goes on to say that RH's Hydra branch, despite its SF / F content, does not meet their requirements for a qualifying market for membership.

But wait, folks; there's more.  They are also proposing to basically keep the rights to the works for print life of the work.  Peeps, eBooks do not go out of print.  That means, they hold the rights to your stuff until you die, and after.  That means if they don't do a good job of promoting, or your sales lag, or the cover they stick you with sucks, you don't have the freedom you have now with KDP or CreateSpace or Smashwords or Kobo or any other self-publishing medium to revise, price, tinker, repackage, offer a free promo period, or publish in any way.  You do not own your work.  You have no say.  Rights never revert back to you.  Never.

Again, the Dick-and-Jane version: RH wants you to write a book for them, to pay them to edit, format, publish and promote it, and you will trust them to count the beans and split the profits with you after they skim out their costs.  And they keep the rights forever--your baby belongs to them.

Snake oil, anyone?

This may sound fair to an author aspiring to break into publication, but to those of us who have already gone the Indie route know that there it's not that hard to format your work using everyday word-processing software, that eBook conversion software is free, there are many artists eager to do a book cover for a reasonable fee, and good editorial services are becoming more and more economical as the traditional publishing houses continue to implode from poor decisions and the pressure of the eBook / Indie movement.

The costs of publishing an eBook are minimal, running at most to the hundreds of dollars--why on earth would you give up your child for that price?  And why would you give the publisher half--after costs--when Amazon lets you keep 70%, and you can do what the hell you want with your stuff whenever you want?

This looks like an isolated incident, but it's not.  It's part of the growing trend of predatory practices around the eBook and self-publishing explosion; everyone wants a slice of the pie, but not everyone wants to earn it.   Self-pub authors deserve every penny for their works, for as long as they live; they are doing the heavy lifting.  But new authors drawn into the business by the publicity of the industry's success may not be savvy enough to avoid the pitfalls that are starting to spring up, traps laid by greedy publishing houses that missed the first wave of success because they had their heads . . . in the sand, and want to get on the board now--at your expense.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.  I urge all of you to mentor new authors entering the biz, and to watch your own backs as well.  There are some legitimate digital publishers out there, and some successful Indie authors have signed careful contracts with the publishing houses, and the so-called hybrids; but Hydra and friends ain't one of them.

Let's cut off every one of the monster's heads, before we're playing Whack-a-Mole

Guest Blog Post on Louise Wise Blogspot; India

U.K author Louise Wise was kind enough to invite me to post a guest blog to her site "Wise Words" (love it); it went live Monday 9/17, and can be found here at http://www.louisewise.com/  Many thanks to Louise for the exposure and opportunity.  I encourage you to read it on her site and give her the hits, but I've also posted it below for those who want to read it here.

On the home front, the epic fantasy novel (still untitled, so at this point it's 'EFN') is now well north of 100,000 words, which is a pretty amazing number when you step back and look at it as a part-time undertaking.  On the other hand, it's got 25 to 50,000 words to go, and will be tight to hit my self-imposed publishing target date of mid-December.

Amazon announced recently that Kindle Direct Publishing eBooks are now available in India, opening up a huge market of millions of potential readers for self-published authors.  The global market continues to expand, and the rising curve of eBook adoption shows no sign of leveling off.

Those of you who read my novella "A Fairy for Bin Laden" may be interested in "No Easy Day", Mark Owen's first-hand account of the inside of Navy Seal operation to take down Osama Bin Laden.  I haven't read it yet, but I'm interested to see how close my extrapolations about the operation match the actual account of the assault on Bin Laden's compound.

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Stop Watching Jersey Shore!

There’s a New Sheriff in Town—Now Write

by 

Stephen M Holak 

First off, a grateful tip of the hat to Louise for inviting me to post a guest blog here. As a newly-minted Indie author, I appreciate every opportunity to market myself and build an audience. Second: my personality lends itself very well to standing on a soapbox and pushing my views and opinions on that audience. Just ask my friends and family. I’m not shy; everyone is entitled to my opinion.

I headed over to these parts to introduce myself, my works, let you to get to know me, promote my stuff, you know? But then I changed my mind. 

I decided to do you all a favor and spank you. 

If you’re a struggling writer, a pre-published author, or a recent self-published / Indie author, what I’m about to tell you should strike a chord. A deep one. It should leave a deep red handprint on your buttocks, Lieutenant Dan. 

Amazon.UK
Amazon.com

Tell me you haven’t said this to yourself: “I really don’t feel like writing today; what’s the point anyway? I’ll hammer away at something for days / weeks / months / years / decades on my lunch hour / train ride / midnight oil-burning session, polish the crap out of it, throw an agonized-over query letter over it, and submit it to an agent / editor / publishing house / magazine, and six months later I’ll get a polite letter thanking me for my submission, the story had promise, but it wasn’t a good fit for (whatever), blah-blah effing blah.”

Your self-imposed word-count for the day just went from one-thousand down to five-hundred, or five-hundred to two-hundred, or to . . . zero; you cracked open a beer, plopped on the couch, and dialed up last night’s episode of Jersey Shore. 

I know you do this. I did it for years. For decades. I didn’t work as hard as I could at my craft, and got absolutely nowhere. What was the point? Deep inside, I thought it was hopeless. I thought I had no control over a writing career, that I was playing a literary lottery. (Oooh. I like that!) 

I’m here to tell you, peeps, that those days are over. It’s a Brave New World. Nuclear winter is over—open the door and take a look. See the sun? I’m not yanking your chain. There are absolutely no excuses for the above excuses. None. There’s a new sheriff in town, and his name is Jeff. Jeff Bezos. (I’ll give you a minute to Google him.) 

In Ancient Times, the Gatekeepers guarded the, well, Gates. The Big Six publishing houses, (hereafter BS) , stood between you and your customers—the readers. BS decided what was good. They decided who would get the shelf space in bookstores. BS paid authors a tiny royalty and don’t-spend-it-all-in-one-place advances. They kept rights to works even when the print runs were over. BS kept over 50% of the price the reader forked over for your sweat, blood and tears--if you were lucky enough to win the lottery, and your chances are about the same—and be published, you got to keep maybe 15% after you paid your agent and traveled the universe signing and promoting your book on your dime 

What they really did, dear colleagues, was decide what they could sell. Not what was good, not what had literary merit or what they thought readers wanted or would enjoy reading, but what BS could sell. What could make BS money. They had absolutely no interest in you, or helping you grow as a writer. You were meat to them. If you weren’t marbled just right, well . . . the metaphor breaks down here, but you get the idea. 

And somewhere deep in your brainstem, you knew this. (This is why, by the way, Jersey Shore has such high ratings.) 

Amazon, and the explosion of self-publishing options like Kindle Direct (KDP) and Createspace and Smashwords has changed all that. You can publish yourself. With one terrifying click of the mouse, the barriers between you and your potential readers, between anonymity and notice, vanish. Poof. 

Repeat after me: There are no more gatekeepers. Readers are free to judge your work on its own merits. If you work hard at learning your craft, if tell a good story, if you edit the hell out of your stuff and edit it some more, if you learn eBook formatting and cover design (or pay someone to do it for you), write a good blurb, and upload the effer to cyberspace and market yourself, people will read your stuff. 

If they like it, they’ll buy it. If readers like your product, you’ll not only be a published author, you’ll be an author with sales. (If you care about those sorts of things, that is. I do. That’s partly why I’m here. The other reason is the spanking.) You can write more works and publish them and build an audience and make some money. 

So use that train ride, that lunch hour, that rainy Saturday, that restless night. Buy a case of Red Bull and a book on editing (better yet, spring for a good editor; it’s an investment) and a book on eBook publishing and learn Photoshop or marry a girl who owns Photoshop and bang out some great covers (which you by the way, have complete control over), and publish your work. Be a writer. Be an author. No one is holding you back any longer. 

No BS stands between you and your potential readers. Stop reading books on writing and blogs on writing (except for this one, and mine, and maybe Joe Konrath; he’s good and I want to be like him), and write, damn it. 

Luke Skywalker: Whine, whine. 

Yoda: “Do or do not. There is no try.” 

Oh, I almost forgot, my novella, “A Fairy for Bin Laden,” about a foot-high pixie named Tinkerbelle who helps the CIA and Army track down Osama Bin Laden, is available on Amazon.com. (http://amzn.com/B0088IBE3I) Please buy it. And my other novella, “O’Reilly’s Sacrifice,” if you like baseball fantasy stories like Field of Dreams. And my epic fantasy novel coming out in December.

I missed a dozen episodes of Jersey Shore writing this, and feel the Universe owes me some compensation.