Writing Like It’s 2009
From Kristine Kathryn Rusch:
Imagine my surprise when I realized that indie writers have ancient myths as well. Because the changes in publishing have happened so quickly—and probably because we live in a world where a smart phone gets outdated within 18 months—things we know to be true about independent publishing aren’t true any more.
Things have changed already and will probably continue to change for the next five years or so. Why five years? Because that’s how long, it seems, for something to get into our consciousness as “normal.”
Those of us who started self-publishing in 2008 or 2009 were at the beginning of a change. We could do things then that we can’t do now. Opportunities existed then that don’t exist now. That doesn’t mean things are worse now; it just means things are different.
. . . .
Fast forward to December of 2012. Dean still does a lot of the work himself. But we have also started four new companies to handle various things to do with just our indie publishing business, we have employees again (sigh), and we still don’t have our entire backlist up. Why? Because (1), the backlist is too damn big to swallow in one big chunk; (2) we had to redo all of our early efforts due to the changes in electronic delivery systems; (3) we added in print books; (4) we added audio books; and most importantly, (5) we moved most of our frontlist—our new books, anyway (I still sell short stories traditionally)—into indie publishing.
Suddenly—or not so suddenly—we have schedules and marketing plans and more work than Dean, I, and four employees can handle. We just hired someone new, and told her what we had said to our very first employee: You’re doing the work of five people, not because we’ve laid off four other people, but because we haven’t hired them yet.
. . . .
I just had lunch with a well-published friend, a New York Times bestseller, who was on an indie publishing panel at a science fiction convention recently, and was disappointed by his experience. He said he got attacked by the other people on the panel, and I said, “Let me guess, they told you your experience doesn’t count because you have a fan base….” and I went on from there, listing a series of criticisms that made him nod, then laugh in recognition.
Already, we can predict what the criticisms will be. That’s because there are “accepted” ways of doing things, and things that “everyone knows are true,” and all kinds of other nasties out there.
In my “Writing Like It’s 1999” post, I listed the myths, and then I added this sentence: “And you know what? Ten years ago, that was all true.”
Well, in 2009, most of this was true:
•You could put up an e-book with a crappy cover, a low price, and no proofing, and you’d get a lot of eager readers to buy the book.
•You could promote that amateurish-looking book on various web forums, particularly the Kindle Boards, and get enough traction to hit Amazon’s bestseller lists.
•Giving a book away for free, especially on Kindle, would give that book a halo effect when it returned to full price. The sales figures would rise, and the book would, again, hit a bestseller list, if only for a short period of time.
•You didn’t have to market your books to other e-book outlets (what other e-book outlets?) because Amazon was the only important outlet (read: the only outlet people were buying from).
•You couldn’t get your books into print without going to a traditional publisher.
•You needed an agent to handle the foreign/Hollywood rights, because that thicket was impossible to enter without an agent.
•You had to produce everything yourself because there was no one else to help you.
•Indie publishing was relatively scam-free.
•Hardcore readers read e-books; everyone else read traditionally published books.
Everything I wrote above is mostly not true any more.
. . . .
Probably the most wrong-headed piece of advice I’ve seen this week. It boils down to this: Know nothing about business? Hire someone to take care of that messy stuff for you rather than learn it yourself. All that needs to be added is the shoulder-pat combined with: “And don’t worry your pretty little head about that horrible business stuff, dear. You can learn it later.” After you’ve signed legal documents you don’t understand, of course.
. . . .
From 2008-2010, e-publishing on the early e-readers was a gold rush. And if you look at the history of any gold rush, you’ll see a familiar pattern.
A few people hit it big in an unexpected way. They make a small fortune. They broadcast the news of that fortune, and then hundreds, if not thousands, of people follow. They hook their horses to their wagons, drop everything, and head to the land of riches, expecting to become millionaires with very little work.
And what happens? Millionaires. Hundreds of them. Only those millionaires don’t get rich panning for gold. They open the supply shops, they serve food to the miners, they supply blue jeans and work boots and equipment, hay for the horses and rooms to rest in at night.
It’s not a coincidence that S&S has opened up an expensive do-it-yourself shop in indie-publishing land. It makes perfect sense. Think of S&S as the chain hotel who heard that there was a fortune to be made by offering rooms to miners who are too tired to pitch their own tents.
Link to the rest at Kristine Kathryn Rusch
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Yeah, looks like I came in after the gold rush. But that’s OK. It doesn’t need to be a “gold rush” to be a viable market, and her main point is that it’s still a viable market, you just need to do it differently.
I found this post incredibly validating. I’ve been encountering a lot of “advice” that seems predicated on the experiences of writers indie publishing in 2009 and 2010. And I’ve tried a few of their techniques – figuring that I need to be open to experimenting – but gotten different results. (That is – a lot of big nothing.) I concluded that publishing in December 2011 and then trying 2009-2010 marketing in 2012 explained the difference. However I’m new to this whole indie publishing gig. It’s very reassuring when an insightful and experienced professional like Kris weighs in.
Another excellent post from Katherine, although I don’t agree with one thing. She recommends continuing to submit work to Publishers.
I’m afraid I really take the extreme view here, I don’t feel any writer should participate in an exploitive system even if they get a good deal. It’s still exploiting everyone else, and one of the best ways to deal with an exploitive system is through boycotting it.
However, what she is saying about how the landscape has changed, and that it will continue to change, I completely agree with. Her advice to persevere and focus on the writing, while being careful not to give over your power and let yourself be taken advantage of, terrific!
I also noticed this:
“California law regarding agents has gotten so harsh that most wannabe agents move to other parts of the industry”.
Really? Do they move to Publishing? How can we get those laws for Publishing? We need those laws!
Oh, I also don’t agree the e-book market has found equilibrium. This is a technology shift, and a temporary lull is just that, and likely to be followed by a sudden rush.
Actually, we *don’t* need those laws. Those laws generally require licensing, and that would mean legit (and often poor, at least starting out) self publishers would be subject to the same licensing restrictions that the predatory “services” would. That would run counter to the whole advantage of doing it yourself to begin with.
Christopher, I’m afraid this is something I feel strongly about. I absolutely believe that agents should have to be licensed in order to represent. The entire field now is completely unregulated and para-professional, rife with abuse and incompetence, with no oversight.
Although, your point about self-publishers needing to be licensed….I’m not sure why…for what reason?
I don’t know about him, but my response to that question would be that it would be very difficult to write a legal definition of agent which wasn’t either too narrow to defeat rules-lawyers (which is one of the primary classes we are trying to control) or so broad as to include certain kinds of publishing operations.
You could DO it, but you’d have to make it pretty draconian, or the sleazeballs would just claim they were publishers who were trying to also expand the availability of the book in other markets.
Well, I agree about the sleezeballs, for sure Marc.
But I got the impression from Christopher’s comment that they are licensed in California. Maybe I got the wrong impression.
But actually – as for making it draconian, honestly, I have no issue with that. I think agents need an oversight agency.
Kristine even talks about that in the article – agents using foreign rights to steal money.
I believe that primarily refers to agents who represent performing artists as opposed to writers. Not that a sleazeball talent agent couldn’t claim to really be a movie-maker (the big studios had more or less a lock on talent during the “Golden Age” and would sometimes loan actors to one another, acting as sort of pseudo-agents.) But it would be much easier for a literary agent to claim to be a publisher – and to have the claim be true for certain values of true – than it would for a talent agent to do the equivalent. Also, literary agents are, absent REALLY bad agreements, not representing individuals, they are representing certain works produced by those individuals, which is another inherent difference between literary agents and talent agents.
Not really disagreeing with your premise, just pointing out why the law might treat them differently for practical purposes.
No Marc, Kristine was referring to Bill Bryson’s lawsuit against his fraudulent agent.
um…allegedly fraudulent…ahem. (If you could insert that in the phrase above I would be most gratified, PG.
)
I may have crossed wires on what part you were commenting on, Mira. Kristine talks about how the agents were driven out of agenting and became publishers. I took your comment to mean that in publishing we needed similar laws like California had for agents.
The problem is, assuming I interpreted your comment correctly, that if the same draconian strictures were put on publishers (in order to weed out the fly-by-nights) it would affect self publishers as well. And one of the great strengths of self publishing is that the barriers to entry have been blown away. What it sounded like you were proposing might very well keep formerly predatory agents from setting up predatory “publishing operations” but it would also make it difficult for legitimate self publishers to publish.
If I misinterpreted what you meant (quite possible, because I’m sick right now and the world is soft and mushy) I apologize.
Chris, sorry you’re not feeling well! My apologies if my reply was intense. This is just something I see red over.
And yes, I think we crossed wires and were talking about different things!
I think regulatory oversight is required when one person is offering services to another in exchange for money, and those services require expertise and ethical behavior.
For one thing, expertise should be both certified and licensed. For another, ethical behavior should be both monitored and enforced.
There can be an imbalance of power when the seller is the one with expertise – how can the consumer know whether they are being served appropriately and not being taken advantage of? Thus the need for an oversight agency to monitor this. You find them in all professional classes, lawyers, doctors, nurses, etc. And auto mechanics!
Agents should be under this classification; they potentially hold alot of power, and operate behind the scenes, often, in secrecy and have many opportunites to be unethical. And many are.
They need oversight!
California licenses and regulates talent agents representing actors, performers, entertainers, directors, etc.
Literary agents representing authors are not included in California’s current agent regulations.
Here’s a link to California’s agency laws:
http://www.agentassociation.com/frontdoor/agency_licensing_detail.cfm?id=572
PG – thank you so much for the information. I plan to contact them and ask about literary agent oversight.
I could be wrong, but I suspect the reason that literary agents are not included is the lack of a strong collective force for writers. We don’t have anything similar to SAG, etc.
Of course, we have the Writer’s Guild, but that just makes things worse.
Whoops, meant the Author’s guild.
Work For the Publishers Guild.
Okay, I wrote an e-mail letter to:
Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standard Enforcement.
Here is the e-mail address: DLSE2@dir.ca.gov
Here’s a link to phone numbers: http://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2006/IR2006-04.html
Here is the letter I wrote:
To whom it may concern,
As a concerned citizen and long-time California Resident, I would like to request that, in addition to talent agents, you consider bringing the occupation of ‘literary agent’ under your umbrella.
As an active participant in internet forums frequented by writers, I have heard numerous complaints about unethical and exploitive actions perpetrated by literary agents, including but not limited to: the theft of money; non-action of representation; providing bad advice or taking actions that directly harms the long-term career of the writer; drafting contracts that favor the other party as opposed to their client; as well as active discrimination in the choice of clients.
There are currently no requirements to become a literary agents, and no ethical standards that are enforceable. Writers faced with exploitive treatment frequently have little recourse.
I very much appreciate your kind attention to this matter. I would be happy to provide references and research to document the above, if that would be helpful.
Thank you,
Let’s see if they write back.
I wonder who else I can write.
I agree that the landscape has shifted and settled a lot in the last few years, but I wish Kris had talked about more of the specifics. And then she negates everything she said in the last few paragraphs by insisting that the early bestsellers didn’t succeed because of luck or fan bases or timing, but because they wrote good stories.
Yes, she was a newbie once too…in the 1970s. The path writers took from newbie to professional in the 20th century was very different from the path facing young writers today. When she was a newbie, she submitted stories to publishers and waited for them to wave the magic wand. By the time she set up her own companies and started experimenting with eBooks, she already had a long, long backlist and amazing contacts in the industry.
Now newbie writers, especially indies, have to pull themselves up by the bootstraps with little to no help. We’re expected to have glitzy blogs with a thousand visitors a day and active Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest accounts. If we don’t churn out six books a year, it’s because we’re “lazy.” We take on the burdens of querying reviewers, negotiating our own contracts, landing interviews, setting up and funding book signings…
Of course Kris had to build her career just like anyone else, but the rules have changed. Her snarky parentheticals insisting otherwise rub me the wrong way. Fact: Writers who built their fan bases using different techniques in a different era can’t claim they had the exact same experience as today’s unknowns. Fact 2: The early bestsellers like Amanda Hocking got lucky. For every one of the indie darlings like her who stumbled into mega-success, there are hundreds of other “marvelous storytellers” who didn’t. And Fact 3: Successful people almost always believe that their success is due entirely to their own skills and hard work, and that luck had nothing to do with it. It’s easy for them to tell less successful people that they’re just not working hard enough or writing well enough.