traditional publishing
There’s no question that we are living in a society obsessed with youth. We base many of our increasingly unrealistic standards for physical beauty on the premise that we all have expiration dates, after which we are simply no longer attractive. We celebrate and idolize young people who succeed in sports, business, and the arts. We fill our Facebook and Twitter feeds with viral videos of impossibly young people doing impossibly impressive things. So it stands to reason that we writers – who are, let’s face it, a species known for our seemingly infinite ability to find things to be insecure about – might feel some pressure to succeed before… well, before it’s too late. A ticking clock, if you will.
The clock ticks even louder for those of us “of a certain age.” In addition to worrying that our window of publishing opportunity is closing, there’s also that pesky mortality thing looming in the back of our minds. This only adds to the steaming pot of Insecurity Stew many of us keep simmering on our mental stovetops. (Hmmm, do people even have mental stovetops? Perhaps there’s a better metaphor. Okay, not perhaps. There’s *definitely* a better metaphor; it just eludes me at the moment. But I digress…)
Bottom line, age is something that ultimately concerns us all. Juliet Marillier’s excellent post last week touched on the aspirations and concerns of older writers throughout all stages of their careers, and it prompted some candid and insightful comments. Today, I want to focus on older writers who have not yet been published – or perhaps have not yet written their first book. In particular, I want to delve into the questions that many of them may be asking themselves: Is it too late to start writing? Am I too old to be published? Did I miss my shot? All of these lead me to ask a simpler question:
For a writer, how much does age matter?
And here’s my short answer: less than you think. To give my opinion some context, here’s some background. I started writing fiction seriously at the age of 40, and sold my first novel at 50. I am now 39 years old.
Okay, you see what I did there. While I’m telling you age doesn’t matter, I make a joke of lying about my age. That’s to acknowledge that yes, ageism is a real thing, and it exerts pressure on us in many aspects of our lives. I just don’t think it has that big an effect on us as writers – at least not as negative an effect as you might believe. In fact, I think there actually are advantages to being an older writer, as I’ll describe next.
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I’m not an expert in self-publishing. I haven’t looked into all the new venues that let writers get their work out in the world on their own. I haven’t run the numbers — what kind of sales you can expect and what return you’ll get on your investment. The only research I’ve done is to watch what’s been happening with my clients over the last 25 years.
I’m not saying that no one should ever self-publish. I know that it has worked well for a lot of writers, and it has sometimes been the right choice for my clients.
But I am saying that there are dangers to self-publishing that you need to hear. If you decide to do it, you should at least know what the pitfalls are.
The biggest pit that you don’t want to fall into is self-publishing before your book is ready. I’ve had a couple of fans of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers proudly send me their self-published books. Almost without exception, they were full of unlikable characters, obvious plot twists, stilted dialogue, and basic stylistic awkwardness that can’t be cured just by reading a book on writing, even a really good one. The problem is, it’s almost impossible to judge for yourself whether or not you’re ready to publish. This is what critique groups, independent editors, and submissions to agents are for – to let someone other than yourself size up your manuscript.
Premature publication doesn’t just waste money. A lot of modern self-publishing companies, particularly e-publishers, let you get your book on the market on the cheap. The real danger lies in the time you’ll spend designing and marketing your book — time that you should spend either revising it or starting the next one.
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Please welcome guest Susan Spann, a publishing attorney and author of the Shinobi Mysteries, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo. Her debut novel, Claws Of The Cat (Minotaur, 2013), was Library Journal’s Mystery Debut of the Month and a Silver Falchion finalist for Best First Novel. Her third Shinobi Mystery, Flask Of The Drunken Master, released in July 2015, and the fourth is scheduled for publication in August 2016. Susan is the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ 2015 Writer of the Year, and the founder and curator of the Twitter #PubLaw hashtag, where she provides publishing legal and business information for writers. When not writing or practicing law, she raises seahorses and rare corals in her marine aquarium.
As an author and transactional attorney with almost twenty years’ experience representing authors, publishers, and artists, I understand how critical it is for authors to understand their legal rights—and how few good sources of legal information exist for authors seeking to learn how to do it. I founded the #PubLaw hashtag, and wanted to blog for WU on legal issues, to help empower authors by providing information about writers’ legal rights and how to protect them.
Connect with Susan on her blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
Obtaining Reversions of Publishing Rights: the Good, the Bad, & the Ugly
In my work as a publishing lawyer, I frequently hear from authors hoping to terminate publishing contracts and obtain a reversion of rights to their published works. Rights reversion can be tricky, especially when the contract doesn’t give the author a unilateral (meaning “one-sided”) right to terminate. However, authors do have several options when it comes to terminating old or dysfunctional contracts and obtaining reversions of publishing rights.
Today, we’ll walk through the steps an author should follow to try and obtain reversion of publishing rights from a traditional publishing house.
Step 1: Review the Contract. In almost all cases, publishing contracts contain provisions stating when and how the contract can be terminated, and by whom. If the contract allows you to terminate under your current circumstances, follow the procedures in the contract to request reversion of your rights. Normally, these procedures include a written notice to the publisher (often sent via certified mail) stating the reasons for termination. Comply with the contract procedures exactly. If you have questions, or don’t understand the contract terms, consult a publishing lawyer.
Step 2: Ask the Publisher to Revert Your Rights. If the contract doesn’t grant the author the unilateral right to terminate, or if your situation doesn’t meet the requirements for unilateral termination, consider asking the publisher to agree to termination of the contract and a reversion of rights. By law, the parties to a contract can always modify or terminate the agreement by mutual consent, even if the contract doesn’t say so.
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Please welcome Greer Macallister, author of historical suspense (The Magician’s Lie), to Writer Unboxed as a regular contributor! We’re thrilled to have her with us.
My debut novel, The Magician’s Lie, was released in hardcover almost a year ago, on January 13th — the very same day as another debut: Paula Hawkins’ thriller The Girl on the Train.
Since then, The Girl on the Train has sold 4 million copies. The Magician’s Lie… has not.
Why and how does a book catch fire? It certainly helps to have a publisher giving the book a full-court press, as Riverhead did with Girl, but there have been plenty of debut novels positioned just as carefully, and funded just as generously, with nowhere near the results. (If you’ve read The Gargoyle, the ‘It Novel’ of 2008, please raise your hand.)
We all go into this business hoping our book is going to be The One. It almost never is.
We get the luck we get.
Not that I consider myself unlucky. Quite the opposite. While The Magician’s Lie hasn’t sold 4 million copies, it has done quite well — excellent reviews, good sales figures, flattering honors. And it’s passed the ultimate test for most writers: it’s done well enough for my publisher to buy my next book.
Much of that, like much of Paula Hawkins’ success, is luck. It landed on the right person’s desk on the right day. The readers at Target liked it enough to make it a monthly Book Club Pick. The guest judge at Book of the Month chose it as a main selection, and that guest judge happened to be Whoopi Goldberg. If it had come out in a different month, or if there had been different people making these decisions, my luck would have been different. Bad instead of good. Or not even bad, just nonexistent.
Which is why I tell writers: Take your luck. But I also tell them this: make your luck.
There is so much in this business we can’t control. But there are certain things we can. We can make each book the best it can be. We can seek the advice of experts and build the right team — everyone from agents and editors to beta readers and booksellers — to get a very good book into the hands of as many people as possible.
And if good luck comes your way, you have to help build on it. Tackle the edits. Do the interviews. Move heaven and earth to go on the tour. Spread the word any way you can. Say yes, say yes, say yes.
Four-leaf clovers, like anything else green, die without water.
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See If I Can Practice What I Preach
Personally I’ve never cared for the word “succinct.” Maybe you’ve noticed. Well, of course you have.
But the terrifying events in Paris last weekend brought home something I’d been trying to clarify for myself for some time. It’s about how we handle issues of craft and industry in publishing. And it’s my provocation for you today.
What if we’re over-thinking, overwriting, overdoing just about everything we touch in publishing? Because we can.
What if we’re not doing it but instead are just doing stuff about it? What if the sparks are flying because we’re grinding, grinding it all into the ground?
As I watched my former colleagues at CNN International struggling to handle the #ParisAttacks coverage, I knew exactly what they were going through. On the ground, it’s often called “incremental coverage.” And it’s a gruelling, brain-blistering exercise—much harder than it looks and involving hundreds of people you never see. Everyone must try to get the latest, “the very latest!” bit of news. I do mean “bit.” As in scraps. You see one word or a short phrase from a French official churned over and over in fonts. That’s because that’s all there is. Nothing else new. Each death and injury number offered by an official source is chanted over and over. Everyone tries to avoid speculation, everyone fails. Everything carries Breaking News graphics, very little is truly breaking. In a major story, this exhausting bid for new, fast, and anything head-turning can go on not for hours but for days. Days.
Sustaining this is incredibly hard. You’re trying to hold an audience’s attention with small new elements of detail when there are 600 channels above you on the dial and 200 below you. And just about every one of those other channels has something less upsetting to offer than the unforgivable violence perpetrated on those innocent victims in Paris by such unholy assailants. Many network-news employees will define their careers by the high-relief of these stories. They’re the only times the 24-hour news services really blow through the roof on ratings, of course. A nightmare like the one we saw a week ago can wipe the goofy smile off any Candy Crusher’s face and draw even the silliest of society to our glowing screens of horror.
Rightly so. As Miller had it, “Attention must finally be paid” to such inexcusable violence. For all the missteps and vamping of this coverage, these are modern news coverage’s most powerful moments. And so overdone. By the time one of these cycles has been so agonizingly flogged—albeit for all the right reasons—viewers are numb. Our coverage of the Second Coming will make us all yawn before it’s over.
Read MoreThe transformation of publishing as a result of the proliferation of e-books and self-publishing is an inescapable topic these days. As well as making every writer face the devil’s choice of whether to go traditional or go independent, this transformation has also created a new spinoff industry–you—the writer and author. Providers of author services are a growth sector of the economy.
As the director of advertising on Writer Unboxed, I’ve been thinking about how the development of author services further changes the job of being an author, adding responsibility for being an educated consumer of those services, but also what it means for blog owners.
Writing advice and advisors have always been around, but now, as well as ‘how-to write’ guides, there are DIY manuals for designing your own cover, formatting your own book, editing your own book, managing your own promotion. If you don’t want to go the full DIY route, you can buy a bunch of author-targeted software or you could hire some help–book cover designers, editors, book promoters, book formatters, packaging agencies, book advertisers, booksellers, marketing advisors, story ‘doctors’, indexers. The list could go on.
Many of these services have existed for a long time, but the providers traditionally worked directly with publishers. Some of these services are brand new, a product of the new e-book revolution.
All of them would like to gain your attention. Yes yours, because you, dear Writer Unboxed reader, are their niche market. Their intended clientele. Their bread and butter. And, yes, sadly, in some instances, their mark.
As with any industry, many of these service providers offer a valuable service and expertise, care about their reputation, and operate according to above board business practices. As with any industry, where there is money to be had, some of the service providers are out for the money. By whatever means they can get it.
Gaining your attention, let alone your patronage, is not easy. In a business where the standard legend is that all it takes to get published (and make millions) is to crank out some content, generate a file, and put it up for sale at one of the on-line booksellers, these author service providers not only have to reach their prospective clientele, they have to convince them that hiring a service provider is more valuable than DIY’ing it. Most people know when they need a lawyer. Not everyone knows when to hire a developmental editor, content editor, copy editor, or proof reader. Whether to hire a book packager or software that will generate the proper format for an ebook ‘automatically’ is equally unknown. That means even legitimate service providers have to be aggressively persuasive about the need for their services. That can make their promotional tactics more extreme–promising more for less or using gimmicks to get the prospective client’s attention.
For the author, this makes it absolutely critical to do due diligence before hiring any service provider or buying any service product. Ask for referrals from previous clients. Ask for a sample of work before you buy the whole package. Be clear about what services are and are not being provided. Advertising is a means of getting your attention, it is not a contract, a promise, a certainty.
Writer Unboxed is front and center […]
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I recently stumbled across something called Parkinson’s Law. Originally expressed in a humorous essay published in the mid-1950s, this law states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” The author, Cyril Northcote Parkinson, based this observation on his experience in the British Civil Service, and he intended this “law” to be interpreted as satire, poking fun at the highly bureaucratic manner in which his government coworkers functioned.
This law became popularized in recent years by Tim Ferriss, a self-described “human guinea pig” who rose to prominence with his best-selling book, The 4-Hour Work Week. In that book, Tim embellished Parkinson’s original language a bit, stating that “Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for completion.”
But Tim wasn’t being satirical. A notorious “life-hacker” who is always looking for ways to do things faster, better, and easier, Tim is a big advocate of minimizing the time he allots to specific tasks. He emphasized Parkinson’s Law in his book, because he feels that when it’s accepted passively, it’s a mindset that works against us, making us far less efficient.
NOTE: Before I go any further, this article is *not* an endorsement of Tim Ferriss and his ongoing “life experiments.” I find him a very intelligent and intriguing person, but I also find some of his opinions and ideas to be… well, I guess “batshit crazy” is an apt term. But he’s definitely a thought-provoking guy, and I think the world is richer for having such an articulate and outspoken presence within the Zeitgeist. And I do think Tim makes some powerful points, some of which I’ll share in this post.
Parkinson’s Law and heavy drinking
I’ve definitely witnessed both the good and the bad sides of Parkinson’s Law. I have an old friend I’ll call Dave, an extremely talented guitarist who built an elaborate recording studio in his home. A very creative guy, Dave would spend countless hours working on original songs, some of which I played drums on. But I noticed he would get so caught up in making small tweaks to the parts he’d recorded, that he hardly ever actually finished a song.
The most extreme example of this was when I saw him after about a five-year hiatus during which our paths had not crossed. After exchanging some enthusiastic greetings, Dave said, “Keith, you gotta hear the latest version of that song you played on the last time you came over to my house. I just added some really cool parts to it, and it’s really coming along nicely!”
In nearly five years, my friend hadn’t yet finished a three-minute song that I’d frankly forgotten about. This was definitely a case of a task expanding to fill the time allotted to it – which in this case was all the time in the world.
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If you missed Part 1 of my interview with BookBub’s Industry Marketing Manager–or if you have no idea what BookBub is–click HERE, then come back. Today I’ll wrap my two-part interview with BookBub’s Diana Urban.
But first… Something unexpected and fortuitous happened on the way to seeing this interview published. My publisher, Crown, decided to run a BookBub on my second novel, The Moon Sisters, and initiated a temporary price drop. That BookBub goes live today, so I orchestrated things here at WU so this post could go live today, too.
‘Show don’t tell,’ right?
Below is a screen capture of stats for The Moon Sisters on Amazon, taken on 9/17, the day before the BookBub. Just so you have all of the facts, my Amazon rank before the e-book was put on sale on 9/13 was 240,000. It dropped to about 6,000 after the sale began and I ran a BookSends promotion. I’ve also promoted over social media, but nothing too extravagant or repetitive.
This is where things stood on Barnes and Noble as of 9/17:
This is the second time Random House has run a BookBub for The Moon Sisters. The first time was very succesful–the eBook reached #10 in Nook books at Barnes and Noble, and #1 in the Mothers and Children fiction category on Amazon and #116 overall. If you’d like to follow along today, you’ll see for yourself what happens to a book’s numbers on the day of a BookBub; you can watch The Moon Sisters’ pages at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. BookBub’s daily email usually lands around 10-10:30 EST, and the effect is not immediate but, well, you’ll know it when you see it.
Numbers update (9/19), for interested followers:
Within 24 hours of the BookBub for The Moon Sisters, the book reached #61 in Kindle books on Amazon (an increase of over 22,000%). It was again #1 in the Mother’s and Children fiction category, #3 in Psychological Thrillers, #3 in Coming of Age fiction, and #5 in Family Life fiction. It reached #13 at Barnes & Noble in Nook books, #13 in Kobo, and #49 in iBooks.
Without further ado, the second part of my interview with Diana Urban. Enjoy!
The Writer Unboxed / BookBub Interview, Pt 2
TW – Q16: In terms of author sales following a BookBub, is there a point where a given book, series, or author starts to experience diminishing returns with BookBub promos, and if so how can that be avoided?
BB: Each genre has anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of subscribers. Books sent to these massive and highly engaged lists typically experience a significant spike in downloads and revenue within the span of a few days. This often leads to increased retailer rankings, better performance in recommendation algorithms, and even hits on major bestseller lists like The New York Times or USA Today. This increased visibility usually gives rise to even more downloads from readers who find the title through these other outlets. These extra sales beyond those generated by BookBub subscribers are what we call the “halo effect.”
Independent author Cheryl Kaye Tardiff is a great example of this. Here is a graph showing book sales of her thriller […]
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‘There’s Never Been a Better Time To Be A Writer’
You’ve read that line, of course, we all have. Sometimes here at Writer Unboxed.
I’ve seen this mantra frequently over the past few years in blog posts, conference reports and news items. And I don’t disagree there’s been a lot to celebrate.
This is the author Roz Morris, based in London. She teaches courses in writing and editing for The Guardian, as well as in Zurich, later this month in Venice.
But from what I see right now, this time is also tougher for authors than ever.
Wait, what?
Indie authors feel it in their book sales. Hands up, who is in a forum where the chief discussion is “what can I do about my dwindling sales?” “Anybody else had a dismal month?” “Should I drop my book’s price, put it on Kindle Unlimited, write something more popular, send out more emails, spend $$$ on a marketing course?”
Morris is not just talking about independent writers, either:
The traditionally published authors I know are faring little better, with shrinking advances, ill-supported launches – even the authors who have awards to prove their worth.
I used a bit of this material from Morris as we announced this week an all-new, issues-oriented conference for writers in London: Author Day from The Bookseller and The FutureBook is on the 30th of November and we’re programming it for both traditionally published and independent writers as well as industry players. We want that mix.
One reason that the amalgam of voices is so important to us as we put together Author Day—and as we talk about writers’ and their business every day—is that a strong current of promotion runs through almost any position someone takes these days on the question of publishing and authors.
This is not anyone’s fault.
[pullquote]The market for ebooks has pretty much gone flat. And so we have a problem here…. There’s a glut of high-quality, low-cost books, more books than readers will ever possibly be able to read. —Mark Coker[/pullquote]
We are deeply commercialized cultures now. We are programmed to produce and promulgate hype. We get it early. A few decades ago, that lemonade stand you and your siblings threw together just said “Lemonade” on it, right? This summer’s lemonade stands proclaimed they offered “The World’s Best Lemonade.” I saw this in a small town on Long Island. Cute kids. Scary branding.
And as we move around the Internet, our communications prairie, we’re pretty much forced to engage in self-branding. Once the province only of marketing mavens, now simply to be effective on Twitter, you need a practical bio, not a joke; a good picture, not a greasy-faced party shot; a professional handle, not that silly thing you did in college. Particularly as the various social media become key vehicles of author branding, you have to think about messaging.
And soon, so soon…hype.
Merriam-Webster describes “hype” as “promotional publicity of an extravagant or contrived kind.”
Whether you know what BookBub is or you don’t, whether you have a book for sale now or are still working on a draft, whether you’re independently or traditionally published, you’re going to want to read this Q&A. First, for anyone who doesn’t know what BookBub is about, BookBub is a company that promotes quality e-books with temporarily–and drastically–slashed prices, via a daily newsletter and web updates. They are good at what they do. Very, very good. In a world where we as authors can’t be sure what will or what will not sell books, this seems one sure thing: A BookBub promotion means sales and lots of them.
How to use BookBub is something that stymies many authors I know, though, so when I noticed BookBub’s star presence at this year’s Book Expo America, I approached. That’s when I met Diana Urban, BookBub’s Industry Marketing Manager. I told her my publisher, Random House, had run a BookBub for my second novel, The Moon Sisters, which went exceptionally well. (As I revealed in an essay for BookCountry, sales for the eBook of The Moon Sisters had never really taken off. But the day after my BookBub, the eBook of The Moon Sisters was ranked #10 in Nook books at Barnes and Noble, and #1 in the Mothers and Children fiction category on Amazon.) We chatted for a bit, and then I asked if she’d be interested in doing an interview with me for Writer Unboxed. Happily, she agreed.
[pullquote]Bio Box: Who is Diana Urban? Diana is the Industry Marketing Manager at BookBub, where she regularly publishes content on book marketing, self-publishing tips, and publishing insights at the BookBub Partners Blog. She was previously the Head of Conversion Marketing at HubSpot and is an expert in inbound marketing, content marketing, and lead generation. Diana is also the author of two Young Adult thrillers, and is writing her third novel. Follow her on Twitter at @DianaUrban.[/pullquote]
I recently asked the Writer Unboxed community–mostly through our Facebook group–to chime in with any questions they had about BookBub, and many of those questions are reflected here. So let’s get to it–part 1 of a two-part interview.
The Writer Unboxed / BookBub Interview, Pt 1
TW – Q1: It’s the prevailing opinion that BookBub is unique among a pool of book-promotion services, in that it seems to move the needle in a much more significant way and have a lasting sales impact on the books that are promoted. Why do you think that’s the case?
BB: One of our core goals has always been to provide authors and publishers with a way to run book marketing campaigns that drive real, measurable results. We’re a data-driven company, so every decision we make — from the categories we launch to the new members we acquire — is based on the results of rigorous testing and analysis, which helps us ensure that BookBub continues to be effective at moving the needle for our partners.
BookBub is also unique in that we’re providing curated recommendations to millions of loyal power readers who have specifically opted into genres they’re interested in reading. Our partners […]
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