Self-Publishing Debate Rages On

I’ve come across a number of blogs and articles about the pros and cons of self-publishing lately. If you’re considering self-publishing, I’m not sure if all the opinions are making things clearer or muddying the waters. But here are a couple of articles that seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. The first is rather cautionary and focuses on six aspects that self-publishers tend not to talk about when advocating self-publishing. It’s somewhat revealing that the blogger posted an old sepia photo of a snake oil ad at the top of the blog. Here’s the points he’s made:

1. Stimulating sales is hard
2. Many self-published authors earn less than $500 a year
3. The biggest contributing factor to sales is luck
4. Designing a cover and editing is not easy
5. Kiss movie and foreign rights goodbye
6. Advocates aren’t selling a new paradigm, they’re selling themselves.

 He’s not wrong on most points, but I will say that on the forums I visit, authors are very open about the difficulty of selling and the question of luck. Many are also vocal about the importance of having professionals design covers and edit books. Furthermore, I know of several authors who’ve signed movie and foreign rights deals, although they are in a minority. Still, self-publishing is hardly the kiss of death. You can read the whole piece at http://litreactor.com/columns/six-tough-truths-about-self-publishing-that-the-advocates-like-to-avoid-discussing

The flipside to the pro and con debate is a piece by bestselling author Robert Bidinotto, who writes ten reasons why you should self-publish rather than traditionally publish. He has a picture of a Kindle reader at the top of his blog. I’ve condensed his points here:

1. Nobody can stop you from publishing your book
2. You’ll make a lot more money and be paid faster
3. You’ll publish incredibly fast, or at your own pace
4. You’ll have complete creative freedom
5. You’ll finally find an audience
6. Finally, you’ll be on the right side of history

 He gives reasons for all of his points and you can read the whole piece at http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/05/29/10-reasons-you-should-skip-the-traditional-publishers-and-self-publish-ebooks-instead/?singlepage=true

Again, Bidinotto isn’t wrong on most points, however, whether a self-publisher will find an audience and make a lot more money is really dependent so many uncontrollable factors. These kinds of bold statements can confuse or even mislead newbie authors. To get a truer picture of successes and failures, visit the forums where writers share their stats, and highs and lows. Kindleboards is one of the best, particularly if you go to the Writers’ Cafe thread. Amazon.com forums will also provide some interesting insights. Good luck!

 Dealy Accusations

The Opposite of Dark

Fatal Encryption

Taxed to Death

The Story Behind Rubicon Ranch

Almost two years ago, I got the idea to write a collaborative novel online. I broached Second Wind Publishing authors with the concept, and I found eight other writers willing to participate in the experiment. It took a few months to hammer out the details, which seemed an endless task back then, but now I see as incredibly swift. The story was, after all, a committee production.

We started out with what we considered the most heinous of crimes --- the death of a little girl. In the first chapter: Chapter 1: Melanie Gray — by Pat Bertram, which was posted on October 24, 2010, Melanie found the girl’s body stuffed in an abandoned television console when she was wandering in the desert, trying to come to terms with the death of her husband. Poor Melanie. So much death!

Each author created a character who might have a reason to kill little Riley. And each character was hiding something.

Could Kourtney and Jeff Peterson have killed their daughter, mischievous nine-year-old Riley, to protect their secret?

Moody Sinclair had once killed an eight-year-old boy. Has she killed again?

Fifteen-year-old Dylan McKenzie is a straight A honor student. By day. Did Riley discover the other Dylan, the one who prowls at night?

Cooper Dahlsing does strange things while sleepwalking. Could he have killed and not known it?

Mark and Jamie Westbrook, self-styled private investigators, show up to help solve the murder, but perhaps they had a hand in creating the crime?

Eighty-two-year-old Eloy Franklin sits on his porch and watches. But does he do more than watch?

Forty-three-year-old Melanie Gray found Riley’s body stuffed in a television console that had been dumped in the desert. But is she as innocent as she seems?

Sheriff Seth Bryan is bitter and cynical at having lost everything he values. Is he manufacturing crimes to bring him the notoriety he craves?

So many villainous characters! And until the very end, no one knew who committed the dastardly deed, not even the writers.

The novel was supposed to be a promotion stunt, but halfway through, it got derailed by life. One author had to deal with colon cancer, including three debilitating operations. Another author had to deal with a flooded house that was uninhabitable for six months. Still other authors had to deal with grief after the loss of significant people in their lives or heavy job pressures. When we started in again, we’d lost all our readers, so there was no longer any promotional value, but still we persevered.

And now the book is finished. You can read the entire novel online for free. If you prefer to read the book on an ereading device, Rubicon Ranch: Riley’s Story is available as a Kindle or in the ebook format of your choice from Smashwords. It’s also available in print from Amazon and Second Wind Publishing.

But . . .

That is not the end of Rubicon Ranch! Though some of the authors went on to other projects, enough wanted to continue the Rubicon Ranch saga, so we lassoed a few additional authors into creating characters.

And now we have a new story.

Three months after finding the body of the little girl, poor Melanie is again wandering in the desert, still having a hard time dealing with her husband’s death, when she sees a congress of ravens pecking at a dismembered foot. Who was the victim and why did someone want him so very dead? Everyone in this upscale housing development is hiding something. Everyone has an agenda. Everyone’s life will be different after they have encountered the Rubicon. Rubicon Ranch, that is.

Although some of the characters from the previous collaboration are featured in the new story, Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces is a stand-alone novel. The first chapter will be posted Monday, June 11, 2012 on the Rubicon Ranch blog, and a new chapter will be posted every Monday after that.

I hope you will join us in this new serial adventure. It should be a devious tale.

Map of Rubicon Ranch.
A) Melanie Gray
B) Moody Sinclair
C) Eloy Franklin
D) Leia Menendez
E) Ward Preminger
F) Egypt Hayes
G) the Peterson house

***
Pat Bertram is the author of Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. All Bertram’s books are available both in print and in ebook format. You can get them online at Second Wind Publishing, Amazon, B&N and Smashwords. At Smashwords, the books are available in all ebook formats including palm reading devices, and you can download the first 20-30% free!

Fun at Bloody Words Conference 2012

I just returned from my first Bloody Words conference in Toronto since 2000. Although I was born in Toronto, my parents left when I was a baby so my connection to it is kind of strange. I have relatives there, yet the city feels like a foreign world on the rare occasions I return. I have to say, though, that the clouds and rain, and downtown construction which messed up traffic was a lot like being home in Vancouver.

As a member of Crime Writers of Canada’s executive board, it was time for me to brave the long plane ride and finally return. I was impressed with the Hilton’s facilities and really enjoyed the conference. Things were easy to find and the coffee maker in my room was a huge bonus, since I averaged 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night.

Aside from the great pleasure of seeing old friends and meeting new ones, there were many highlights, but I can’t cover them all, so I’ll focus on Thursday night, which was the banquet to announce the Arthur Ellis Awards winners (I listed the nominees back in April). As part of our promotion efforts to raise CWC’s profile, a couple of board members arranged a special themed dessert with Sugarstars, a team of people who produce a show for The Food Network, which will be shown in August (date to be announced).

After the banquet and awards ceremony, we were hurdled to another room where the TV cameras and desserts were waiting. The team recreated an autopsy room, complete with a skeleton and x-rays on screens. There was a shrouded “corpse” with two large feet made of cake sticking out. You know, it’s pretty weird when someone’s standing there with a knife, asking if you’d like one toe, or two. Also, there were arteries, cupcakes iced with “brains” which looked far too real to eat. There were also test tubes filled with a red drink I wasn’t bold enough to try either, plus “eyeballs”. For a moment, I thought I'd walked into a horror set, but it was all great fun.

And here’s the list of Arthur Ellis winners:

Best Crime Short Story went to Cathy Astolfo for “What Kelly Did” in NorthWord Magazine. Cathy was also awarded the Derrick Murdoch Award for her many contributions over the years to Crime Writers of Canada.

Best Crime Nonfiction went to Joshua Knelman for his book Hot Art: Chasing Thieves and Detectives Through the Secret World of Stolen Art.

Best Juvenile or Young Adult Crime went to Tim Wynne-Jones for his novel Blink & Caution.

Best Crime Book in French went to Martin Michaud, for La chorale du diable

Best Unpublished First Novel went to Sam Wiebe for Last of the Independents

Best First Novel went to Ian Hamilton for The Water Rat of Wanchai

Best Crime Novel went to Peter Robinson for Before the Poison

The Derrick Murdoch Award also went to Don Graves, a terrific reviewer for the Hamilton Spectator and longtime supporter of Canadian crime fiction and crime writers.

Needless to say, there were many more highlights throughout the conference, but it would take too long to mention them all here. All I can say is that another Toronto conference will be held in 2014. Be there!

Deadly Accusations

The Opposite of Dark

Fatal Encryption

Taxed to Death

Self-Publishing Hits and Misses

An interesting article in The Guardian reported that, based on a survey of 1,007 self-published authors (a tiny fraction of this group) the average amount of money earned in 2011 was $10,000 and half of those surveyed earned less than $500. If any of you have been following the forums on amazon.com or Kindleboards these stats probably won’t surprise you. Sure, there are many success stories of authors doing far better than $10,000, but there are even more who aren’t despite good promotion efforts.

Here’s another interesting tidbit from the study. Romance authors earned 170% more than those writing in other genres. Science fiction writers earned 38% of that $10,000 income, fantasy writers earned 32%, and literary authors just 20%. Mystery/thriller writers weren’t even mentioned in the study, so I have no idea where we stand.

The thing is, the success of people like Amanda Hocking, John Locke, and El James (all of whom have sold a million ebooks or more) has become so widespread that plenty of newbie authors with rejected manuscripts in their drawers are pulling them out and publishing them in hopes that they might grab a piece of that action. Some of them will, but a lot won’t, especially if they haven’t taken the time to edit and format their books properly, not to mention acquire a great cover and jacket blurb. You can read the article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/24/self-published-author-earnings?cat=books&type=article

If you’re interested in hearing more self-publishing success stories, Kindleboards has published a list of 145 authors who have sold 50,000 copies or more of their books, which you can find at http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,103665.0.html This link is also included in a really interesting blog by someone called io9. The blog contains a somewhat disheartening photo of the slush pile at Tor books, where piles of unopened manuscripts sit on a tall cart. You can read the blog at http://io9.com/5911634/the-most-successful-self+published-sci+fi-and-fantasy-authors

While self-publishing is still flourishing, it’s not a dream come true for everyone, but it certainly seems to offer more writers the opportunity to make money and gain readers than they would have if their manuscripts were still languishing on that slush cart.

 Deadly Accusations

The Opposite of Dark

Fatal Encryption

Taxed to Death

Writers' Tools -- People Watching

I spent the last two days with the Southern Indiana Writers Group at an outdoor family fair. Vendors of arts, crafts, snacks, cottage-industry products, and plants set up booths around the Howard Steamboat Museum in Jeffersonville, Indiana. They also have Authors' Row, where local authors and publishers hawk their wares.

It's a great place to people-watch. They pass, in all shapes and sizes and varieties of clothing. Sometimes they linger by our booth, where we offer nearly 20 years worth of our group's anthologies, covering themes from dragons (DRAGON: OUR TALES) to the far future (FUTURE PERFECT (TENSE IN SPACE)). It's always interesting to see who is attracted to which covers, who thumbs through which book, who buys what.

GHOSTS ON THE SQUARE ... AND ELSEWHERE always garners a lot of attention, and often leads to an exchange of spooky experiences. Since the stories are set in Corydon, Indiana, it often also leads to conversations of the "My people are from ... Do you know ... We lived in the house across from ..." variety, which are my meat. One of our buyers on Saturday was the guy one of our daughters bought her house from, and who taught all our kids and oldest grandson in high school.

Then there are the people we stop, so we can ooh and aah over their shirts or hats or tattoos or dogs or babies.

But it isn't only the ones who stop who are material for stories and characters. One woman passed who will definitely have a story; I've already started it.

If you're a writer: Please, never be bored! The people around you are each the main character in his or her own story. Each is a character -- main character or bit character -- in other people's lives. And, no matter how long you've known any person, the story you "know" is not the story they live. On top of that, there are an infinite number of stories that would be possible. An infinite number of possible futures, just given what you know (or think you know) about each person.

Today, I get to take my mother's cat to the vet. I can hardly wait to see who happens.

Marian Allen
Fantasies, mysteries, comedies, recipes

Is Publishing More Work Really Better For Authors?

Over recent years, I’ve had several interesting discussions with writers, albeit none of them with the big six publishers, who’ve been lamenting over the pressure to write more books quickly. Many felt pressured to write one book a year. Many also discovered that their second or third books didn’t garner the glowing reviews of their first book, often because reviewers thought the plot or characters weren’t as fully developed as they could have been. This was a dilemma, I thought for all writers, however, a recent post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch was a real eye opener.

Rusch maintains that as little as three years ago, big six publishers were discouraging their writers from producing too many books, primarily because the cost to produce them was so high. Rusch states that the average midlist novel costs the publisher $250,000 to produce, figuring in the cost of paper, shipping, returns, etc., and that fewer authors were selling enough copies to reach the 4% profit margin the publisher wanted. Therefore, unless the author was a guaranteed superstar, such as Nora Roberts, publishers were reluctant to publish a book every year. Rusch also said that publishers now seem determined to rid themselves of mass market paperbacks by producing fewer of them, opting for trade paperbacks instead.

The ebook revolution, however, has changed these publishers’ attitude toward volume. They’ve begun to see the financial gain in publishing ebooks (because many of them aren’t granting their authors large royalties), and they’re jumping on the lets-publish-lots bandwagon that self-publishers have been doing for some time now. Admittedly, much of the drive to publish more comes from readers who want lots of books from their favorite authors. Romance authors, for instance, have been dealing with this for a long time, and it wasn’t uncommon (probably still isn’t) for established authors to write three books a year.

To meet the demands of readers (and make more money) big six publishers are now apparently pressuring their writers into writing more ebook novellas or long short stories. Publishers tell their writers that it will help sell their next book. One of the problems with this thinking is not only the pressure to maintain quality work, but the lack of financial benefit for the writer. Rusch points out that these big six, and often bestselling authors (excluding the superstars) are receiving no advances and terrible royalties for their novellas/short stories. In other words, it’s more work for a financial payoff that may or may not happen much further down the road.

Rusch says that “every writer gets better terms from traditional publishing on paper formats than they do on e-formats”. And this, folks, is an important aspect about the business of writing that we all need to keep in mind. Traditionally published, established writers are doing more work just to maintain the status quo, but not necessarily seeing the extra dollars in their pockets.

Rusch writes a great deal more about this issue than I can discuss here, so I encourage you to read her fascinating blog at http://kriswrites.com/2012/05/16/the-business-rusch-the-brutal-2000-word-day/

Deadly Accusations

The Opposite of Dark

Fatal Encryption

Taxed to Death