So I've had two really good posts all week but I've been so busy at work. In my off hours, I've been spending time at Book Country. It's a place for authors, aspiring and successful, to gather and share and critique. It reminds me of Authonomy without the used-car mentality or critique.org with less strict tit-for-tat rules. Or Critters (or at least what I've seen of Critters since my application went unanswered). It's in open beta right now which means there's still plenty of room for improvement. But they have a healthy attitude and a positive community approach. So far I'm enjoying myself.
The Easiest Way to Give
So you lost your job and you haven't had an interview in months but you still splurged on presents for the kids because you can't stand to think of them crying in front of the tree. You think to yourself, I don't have any money to give to a charity.
Well, Nathan Bransford is holding the easiest flipping charity known to man. Post on his blog and he'll donate a dollar for each post up to $1000.
Go say thank you, earn a dollar for Heifer International, a rocking charity that me and my wife also give to, and keep other kids from crying on Christmas too.
Go. Now.
Well, Nathan Bransford is holding the easiest flipping charity known to man. Post on his blog and he'll donate a dollar for each post up to $1000.
Go say thank you, earn a dollar for Heifer International, a rocking charity that me and my wife also give to, and keep other kids from crying on Christmas too.
Go. Now.
I'll Make a Bajillion Dollars!
So, as we all know, the reason there is still resistance to the ebook is because some people worry about losing their pretension. How can one prove that one is better than those around one if they cannot see that the book one is reading is clearly far beyond the reading level of everyone else gathered.
There had been a quickly-abandoned proposal of creating ereaders with screens on both sides, one for reading and one for showing the cover. Given that nearly all ereaders are immediately put into a protective cover, this proved a waste of time and monies.
But there must be a way we can welcome the coming epocalypse while maintaining our pretentious superiority! Well, there is, with the Selbomatic eBook Attenuated Label (SEAL-the bad ass of ebook covers).
Take the standard design for an ebook cover. Thick, padded sides with straps to hold in your ereader. Cut a rectangle into the top cover and shave off a few millimeters so there is a book-like divot in the cover. Slice an opening in the side. Print out a color image of the cover of the most pretentious book you want people to think you’re reading (and if you’re really concerned about looking superior, I suggest you actually read the book too lest someone else ask questions you cannot answer). Put the paper image between two thin pieces of plastic, then slide them into the opening until the image is situated in the divot. This divot being in truth a window to your intellectual superiority.
Ideally, you could manufacture this entire thing, but if your intellect can’t wait to be on display, you can accomplish it with a razor blade and a file. I am now accepting start-up capital.
There had been a quickly-abandoned proposal of creating ereaders with screens on both sides, one for reading and one for showing the cover. Given that nearly all ereaders are immediately put into a protective cover, this proved a waste of time and monies.
But there must be a way we can welcome the coming epocalypse while maintaining our pretentious superiority! Well, there is, with the Selbomatic eBook Attenuated Label (SEAL-the bad ass of ebook covers).
Take the standard design for an ebook cover. Thick, padded sides with straps to hold in your ereader. Cut a rectangle into the top cover and shave off a few millimeters so there is a book-like divot in the cover. Slice an opening in the side. Print out a color image of the cover of the most pretentious book you want people to think you’re reading (and if you’re really concerned about looking superior, I suggest you actually read the book too lest someone else ask questions you cannot answer). Put the paper image between two thin pieces of plastic, then slide them into the opening until the image is situated in the divot. This divot being in truth a window to your intellectual superiority.
Ideally, you could manufacture this entire thing, but if your intellect can’t wait to be on display, you can accomplish it with a razor blade and a file. I am now accepting start-up capital.
Print is Killing Publishing
Whether you love the smell of paper books or not, digital distribution will be the primary means of accessing text-based media within your lifetime. Three years ago I was in a meeting of department heads and vice presidents and all the people that make decisions on things. We were discussing the company's ebook strategy. Three years ago, Flashpaper was new and xml-ebooks were in their first iteration. We were on the precipice and most people didn't know it.
We're now over the precipice, in case you're wondering. We're falling. Argue all you want that you prefer paper. We'll hit the bottom soon enough.
Flashpaper seems like old hat now. XML is realized (not fully, as we continue to experiment with enhanced ebooks). HTML5 and CSS3 are the vanguard of the mobile revolution, where computers play second hat to smart phones and tablets. The entire publishing paradigm is shifting and those companies that deal with text-based media are trying to figure out how to handle such a rapidly changing market.
At this meeting, standing a the precipice, we discussed the marketplace, the challenges of digital sales, and most importantly, the challenge of pricing. I asked what I thought was a simple enough question: Why don't we just sell content directly to the consumer?
Now at the time, ebooks represented less than 1% of total sales. MUCH less. The industry moneymaker at the time (and currently, though not for much longer) was paper books. Paper books sold in stores and online at Amazon. A book's marketing budget was much smaller than what was needed to force any one particular title to the forefront of the consumer consciousness. So much of the business depended on customers finding the books while looking for other items. (You know the "people who browsed this item also looked at X, Y, Z" suggestions on Amazon? Those are a big deal.)
The answer was as simple as the question. We can't sell directly to customers because it will upset the market. Cutting the middleman out of a particular part of the market would rock the boat for the much larger revenue generator.
In truth, the answer isn't so simple. It is short, but it embodies so many challenges that publishing isn't willing to tackle. How do you set up a marketplace? Which department owns it and maintains it? Will this require new staff and the costs that go along with them? How does a marketplace work? (I cannot express to you the number of meetings I had to have with directors and VPs explaining what meta-text and catalog searching is.) How do you handle international sales? How do you draw users to your market without the goods of other publishers that are offered in the collective of a place like Amazon? How do you establish industry market standards without provoking (more) anti-trust accusations? How do you sell books?
Did you catch that last one? How do you sell books? Publishers are really good at selling books to the market. Publishers are not very good at selling books to the customer. The industry grew up in cooperation with the market, not in opposition to it. Publishers do not have the staff, the institutional knowledge, or the will to bring anything but a marginal effort to bear when it comes to direct selling.
How does that affect you and me? You get the agency model of ebook selling. Ebooks cost as much as their hard-back brethren because the cost still accommodates the middle man. Rather than a 50/50 split between author and publisher, the whole thing is muddled by including a third party to act as a literary fence.
With the inclusion of self-publishing arms and fourth-party catalogs like Smashwords, marketplace e-bookshelves are less accommodating than ever for browsing. There aren't enough ways to hone searches aside from direct keyword searches. If you want to see fantasy, you get sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. And a LOT of it. And a lot of that, self-published. Sure Tor might not represent 100% of the fantasy market, but when you trace so many of the imprints up to their parent corporations, you'd be surprised how many of them are owned by the same people (Penguin owns at least four different fantasy imprints. Tor at least three, and so on). Bundle all these titles into a top-notch database driven search engine, slap a nice marketplace on the front of it, and all of a sudden you don't need to charge $17.50 for an ebook. You can charge $10 and make more money than you ever did before.
With the rapidly changing distribution paradigm, the obligations of playing nice with the market because of print will soon be meaningless. The problem is, by the time that happens, the publishing industry will have given up any opportunity it had to establish itself as a market option for readers of its work, will have allowed Amazon to muscle its way into the industry despite spats with Macmillain (which I still contend Amazon won despite [or because of] the application of the agency model to ebook pricing [something that will bite publishers in the ass]).
The game is being played while we fall. When we hit the bottom, the game ends, the new era of publishing begins, and only one victor will get up and walk away. The more we fall and the more I see the game played, I predict that victor to be Amazon. If decisive action is not taken, publishers, authors, and customers alike will lie broken and bloodied at the foot of the Cliffs of E-sanity.
We're now over the precipice, in case you're wondering. We're falling. Argue all you want that you prefer paper. We'll hit the bottom soon enough.
Flashpaper seems like old hat now. XML is realized (not fully, as we continue to experiment with enhanced ebooks). HTML5 and CSS3 are the vanguard of the mobile revolution, where computers play second hat to smart phones and tablets. The entire publishing paradigm is shifting and those companies that deal with text-based media are trying to figure out how to handle such a rapidly changing market.
At this meeting, standing a the precipice, we discussed the marketplace, the challenges of digital sales, and most importantly, the challenge of pricing. I asked what I thought was a simple enough question: Why don't we just sell content directly to the consumer?
Now at the time, ebooks represented less than 1% of total sales. MUCH less. The industry moneymaker at the time (and currently, though not for much longer) was paper books. Paper books sold in stores and online at Amazon. A book's marketing budget was much smaller than what was needed to force any one particular title to the forefront of the consumer consciousness. So much of the business depended on customers finding the books while looking for other items. (You know the "people who browsed this item also looked at X, Y, Z" suggestions on Amazon? Those are a big deal.)
The answer was as simple as the question. We can't sell directly to customers because it will upset the market. Cutting the middleman out of a particular part of the market would rock the boat for the much larger revenue generator.
In truth, the answer isn't so simple. It is short, but it embodies so many challenges that publishing isn't willing to tackle. How do you set up a marketplace? Which department owns it and maintains it? Will this require new staff and the costs that go along with them? How does a marketplace work? (I cannot express to you the number of meetings I had to have with directors and VPs explaining what meta-text and catalog searching is.) How do you handle international sales? How do you draw users to your market without the goods of other publishers that are offered in the collective of a place like Amazon? How do you establish industry market standards without provoking (more) anti-trust accusations? How do you sell books?
Did you catch that last one? How do you sell books? Publishers are really good at selling books to the market. Publishers are not very good at selling books to the customer. The industry grew up in cooperation with the market, not in opposition to it. Publishers do not have the staff, the institutional knowledge, or the will to bring anything but a marginal effort to bear when it comes to direct selling.
How does that affect you and me? You get the agency model of ebook selling. Ebooks cost as much as their hard-back brethren because the cost still accommodates the middle man. Rather than a 50/50 split between author and publisher, the whole thing is muddled by including a third party to act as a literary fence.
With the inclusion of self-publishing arms and fourth-party catalogs like Smashwords, marketplace e-bookshelves are less accommodating than ever for browsing. There aren't enough ways to hone searches aside from direct keyword searches. If you want to see fantasy, you get sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. And a LOT of it. And a lot of that, self-published. Sure Tor might not represent 100% of the fantasy market, but when you trace so many of the imprints up to their parent corporations, you'd be surprised how many of them are owned by the same people (Penguin owns at least four different fantasy imprints. Tor at least three, and so on). Bundle all these titles into a top-notch database driven search engine, slap a nice marketplace on the front of it, and all of a sudden you don't need to charge $17.50 for an ebook. You can charge $10 and make more money than you ever did before.
With the rapidly changing distribution paradigm, the obligations of playing nice with the market because of print will soon be meaningless. The problem is, by the time that happens, the publishing industry will have given up any opportunity it had to establish itself as a market option for readers of its work, will have allowed Amazon to muscle its way into the industry despite spats with Macmillain (which I still contend Amazon won despite [or because of] the application of the agency model to ebook pricing [something that will bite publishers in the ass]).
The game is being played while we fall. When we hit the bottom, the game ends, the new era of publishing begins, and only one victor will get up and walk away. The more we fall and the more I see the game played, I predict that victor to be Amazon. If decisive action is not taken, publishers, authors, and customers alike will lie broken and bloodied at the foot of the Cliffs of E-sanity.
Pay Attention, Stupid
Google Home Page has been increasingly deficient in updating modules with new blog posts. I follow a collection of industry people who post daily and lately, some of their posts haven't been showing up until days later. That was another impetus for me to switch from LJ to Blogger. The Blogger Dashboard is much more effective at telling me when content is available. (I'm told it's the same thing as Reader, but I started with Google Homepage when I had a lot of non-blog modules included as well, but they have fallen away over the years.)
One such industry person is Jessica Faust from BookEnds, LLC, a literary agency I queried for BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE. She posted her form rejection letter on her blog today, and I wanted to compare it to the one I received (identical, in case you were wondering). It struck me that it was only to BM&BBQ and not WCO. Why hadn't I queried her again?
So I went to her agent page and saw the reason. She only reps contemporary fantasy, which Black Magic was. Wanted is pure classic fantasy.
...
Now, if you've done your homework properly, you know I'm wrong. She reps contemporary, fantasy. That reads "contemporary [COMMA] fantasy"
You see, that comma was at the end of the line and I skipped right over it. Right over. Woosh! Here's an agent whose blog I follow daily (where I participate almost as frequently) who I could have queried MONTHS ago, but because I missed one stupid comma, I did not send her anything.
So the rule that says do your homework before querying an agent? Here's a sub-clause: Pay attention, stupid.
Oh yeah! While the above remains a smart lesson, in this case, the decision not to query was intentional. I read an interview with Jessica where she voiced a firm opinion of word counts, which WCO surpasses by 30,000+ words.
One such industry person is Jessica Faust from BookEnds, LLC, a literary agency I queried for BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE. She posted her form rejection letter on her blog today, and I wanted to compare it to the one I received (identical, in case you were wondering). It struck me that it was only to BM&BBQ and not WCO. Why hadn't I queried her again?
So I went to her agent page and saw the reason. She only reps contemporary fantasy, which Black Magic was. Wanted is pure classic fantasy.
...
Now, if you've done your homework properly, you know I'm wrong. She reps contemporary, fantasy. That reads "contemporary [COMMA] fantasy"
You see, that comma was at the end of the line and I skipped right over it. Right over. Woosh! Here's an agent whose blog I follow daily (where I participate almost as frequently) who I could have queried MONTHS ago, but because I missed one stupid comma, I did not send her anything.
So the rule that says do your homework before querying an agent? Here's a sub-clause: Pay attention, stupid.
Oh yeah! While the above remains a smart lesson, in this case, the decision not to query was intentional. I read an interview with Jessica where she voiced a firm opinion of word counts, which WCO surpasses by 30,000+ words.
An Incredible Opportunity!
Kristin Nelson, founder and queen bee of Nelson Literary Agency has just turned it up to 11. Thursday, September 30th, in conjunction with Writer's Digest, she is hosting a webinar on improving your SF/F queries. It's as if she's been reading my journal! (Um...high Kristin!) Yes yes yes! This is totally for me. I'm always skeptical of classes and seminars. Who are these people and what makes them qualified?
Well, I know exactly what makes Kristin qualified. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Of all the agents who keep an active web presence on the web, none of them have more accurately articulated the direction epublishing is moving or the challenges that creates for authors and their representatives.
If you have $89 or a credit card with $89 left on it, sign up for this. Her input is worth every penny.
Well, I know exactly what makes Kristin qualified. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Of all the agents who keep an active web presence on the web, none of them have more accurately articulated the direction epublishing is moving or the challenges that creates for authors and their representatives.
If you have $89 or a credit card with $89 left on it, sign up for this. Her input is worth every penny.