Showing posts with label Business Model. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business Model. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Business Model of Writers In A Changing World Part 4 - Patreon and Teaching

Business Model of Writers In A Changing World
Part 4
Patreon and Teaching 



Previous Parts in this series

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/business-model-of-writers-in-changing.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/business-model-of-writers-in-changing.html which is about Google + which is gone, now, in 2019.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/03/business-model-of-writers-in-changing.html


Here is a perfect website presenting and giving access to Cat Rambo, one of the most famous best selling writers in our sprawling and ever-morphing field of fiction.  Study it.  You want to be able to present yourself and your work like this. 

http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/the-fashion-of-worldbuilding-clothes-technology-and-taboos/

You know how we've discussed how to build the world up around your Characters, Plot, Story, and most of all THEME.  Details such as discussed in this course are not chosen at random or because they seem exciting ideas.  They are chosen to convey information without expository lumps.

She has her own novels, plus some books on writing craft on Amazon: 
https://smile.amazon.com/Cat-Rambo/e/B002LFMXGG


Cat Rambo has a Patreon link on her website:  http://www.patreon.com/catrambo

I've seen more and more very famous, widely published, very versatile, long established writers joining the Patreon business model.

Patreon is an online way of allowing everyday people to become Patrons of the Arts, just like old time Aristocracy. 

By subscribing to an author's work, you not only get something from them every month, but you also get to influence the direction of the artistic field's development. 

Patreon is the professional manifestation of the oldest fanzine based fan activity. 

Study Patreon's business model and use it to leverage your zone of influence. 

I don't do a Patreon group, but if I had more time I probably would.  In fact, if I were starting my career today, I'd start with Patreon.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Business Model of Writers In A Changing World Part 3 - Choosing A Computer for Novel Writing

Business Model of Writers In A Changing World
Part 3
Choosing A Computer for Novel Writing
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Previous Parts to the Business Model of Writers series are:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/business-model-of-writers-in-changing.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/business-model-of-writers-in-changing.html

Most computer salesmen will give bad advice about which computer, and which configuration you need for writing novels.

Most computer salesmen have never written a novel, and those who have did not sell their novel to a major publisher, have it go from hardcover to paperback, to re-issue to audiobook, to self-published version, and back to sales by a reputable publisher, and on to a videogame.

Most computer salesmen (and women, you know) have no clue at all what is involved in a career in "the arts." 

Most computer salespersons are convinced they work long hours for little reward.  Which is, in fact, true, but reveals a clueless state.

Even middle-good selling books do not make more than minimum wage for the writer.  In today's changing world where minimum wage is increasing, the purchasing power of the dollar (or whatever currency you get paid in) is decreasing faster than minimum wage is increasing, the writer's initial compensation (advance against royalties) is not increasing.

However, the demands in writer's working time and price of acceptable equipment to output text to a publisher, is increasing.

Although computers make rewriting take far less than a third of the time it took when you had to re-type every page over and over (often 5 drafts), it still takes time to create and polish the words that tell your story.

The price of paperback books has increased while the percent of cover price paid to the writer has stayed pretty much stationary.  So yes, writers get a little more per book sold.  And writers get a larger percent per e-book sold.  However, the number of titles published per year (in all forms) has increased.  Nobody reads everything in a given field anymore (least of all in Romance, or Science Fiction Romance).

Books compete with Netflix and other streaming sources for the entertainment-hour (and buck) -- there are more readers but they are more selective, and tend to prioritize FREE e-books (Kindle etc.) or the 99C deals offered by writers, direct.

So the number of readers per title decreases as the number of books sold per year increases.  That means writer's compensation decreases -- you have to work harder, be more productive, and market agressively just to stay even.

Yes, the price of computing power has decreased, but a computer that can handle a writer doing a Series still costs a lot more than a manual typewriter cost in the 1950's in hours-worked. 

Inflation changes the number of dollars involved, but not the number of beads of sweat.

So how does a writer choose a computer to do "only word processing" in order to write books?

Most clerks understand "word processing" does not require much computer capacity, heft or memory.  They will sell you a student's laptop.

Yes, you can survive that career stage where all you can afford is a student version laptop, maybe a "refurbished" one.  Most successful writers today started on the equivalent of that. 

If you are forced to buy a minimal computer, you will have to pay extra for a cloud subscription such as Carbonite or Dropbox (I use both) or Apple's iCloud or Microsoft's.

We have learned not to trust the hardware on our desks as we trusted the stacks of paper boxes in our garages.  Yes, many writers have lost "everything" to a garage fire or flood. But it was rare.  If the books had been printed, there was a way to get fans to hunt for used copies, then copy-type the whole thing onto paper again (which has been done!).

Today, a paper copy is scanned and OCR'd, and you are good to go electronically, again.  All my older titles were made electronic that way -- by the unstinting efforts of a fan.

Those starting out today have to think long-term.  Don't think "write this novel" -- but "When the 14th Book in this series is published, how will I supply the previous ones to the new market which uses totally different software?" 

Paper was paper, and typewriter fonts were just typewriter fonts (Courier, that's it.)  But today writers work in a "changing world" as this series title suggests.

That is not a "changed world" but a "changing world." 

Plan on format inaccessibility, the need to spend time reformatting, finding software that can read the old stuff and create something the new stuff can read, then more time correcting typos and resisting the urge to rewrite.

In other words, a writer's career is punctuated with doing over again what has been completed and left behind forever.

There is no such thing as "finishing" a novel.

Once that idea has taken root in your vision of the future of your career, you are equiped to choose a computer to write your next novel with.

The choice has to arise from these considerations:

1) store clerks don't understand that novels must be rewritten and previous versions (5-10) kept, character and place notes kept, versions from various publishers reissuing kept, -- when you say "word processing" they think "term paper writing" at the most.  Nothing could be further from the truth!

2) you can't afford what you really need -- and very likely they don't make it yet.

3) In the commercial marketplace, there is a difference between equipment (from chainsaws and snowblowers to computers) made for "home use" and what is manufactured and sold to businesses.  Business machines cost a lot (more than a lot) more than stuff made for hobbyists, students, and grandma.  But they last longer -- long enough to make up for the price difference, and more.

4) there is no way to estimate what you will need during the useful life of a computer.  If your career takes off, you will wear your computer out long before its time, but be able to buy another.  That's fine if you've been paying for bakup in various "cloud" spaces.

5) if your career does not take off immediately, you must keep the ever-more-obsolete computer running because you can't invest more in equipment

6) the new tax law (for 2018) is supposed to let you deduct the cost of new equipment in the year you buy it -- problem is you can deduct it against what you earn that year, and publishers do not pay on time (they just don't - it is part of their business model.) 

7) the computer will die, just quit, eventually.  Home office equipment usually lasts 3-4 years (by design), and today the software field makes 4 year old programs too obsolete to use. 

So how do you make this decision of what to buy?

You want to avoid buying more than you need. 

You want to avoid buying less than you need (a career catastrophe caused by yourself). 

You can't afford what you need.

You have no clue what you need.

Nobody has a clue what you really need, least of all the experts in computers.

In other words, it's pretty much like buying a car or a house -- mission-critical but sans knowledge of what the mission is.

So what do you do? 

The truth is that you can't afford what you need because the profit margin your business model produces is not sufficient to cover the cost of producing the product.  This is true for all but the tiny percentage of writers who go to the top of the charts -- and even then, it usually doesn't last a lifetime.  Monetizing your hard work over decades takes preserving that hard work in a form that can be re-sold and re-issued.  This is not a problem specific to writing.  You find exactly the same business model problem in all "The Arts." 

I've been writing novels on computers since before there was such a thing as Microsoft Windows, or its predecessor "Presentation Manager."  And I've struggled (with massive help from fans) with re-issue issues on every title.

I learned my solution to this impenetrable conundrum of a problem from my first typewriter repairman.

I was just starting to try to sell short stories.  I went to a used typewriter store, asked for a machine to write books on, and bought a nice one.  I wore it out.  I went back and bought another, which I had to take back for repairs several times a year. Became buddies with the repairman in the back of the store.

A couple years into this routine, the guy hands me back my machine and asks, "What in the world are you DOING to these typewriters?" 

Blink.  Blink,blink. "But I told you, writing books."

6-8 hours a day, typing 80-100 words per minute, when copying text. 

THAT is what secretaries in big offices do, not what salesmen envision writers do. 

So he says, "What you really need is an IBM." And he pointed me to a monsterous gray hulk he had refurbished.  I bought it.  Wore it out a few times, had it repaired, bought another.  Eventually, I was able to afford the new IBM and an on-site service contract, but I wore that out, too.

Many years later, I saw a fellow -- a big hearted guy -- who had a chain saw in his garage. Came a big storm that downed trees on his street, so he went to help the neighborhood guys and electric company linemen chop trees and clear the roads.  His chain saw broke.  It was almost new, but it wore out.  He asked the linemen.  They said it looked the same as theirs on the outside but was made chintzy inside. 

So this marketing ploy is still in play.

What they sell mass-market to homeowners and students LOOKS the same on the outside, but inside it is different from what they sell to professionals.  This holds in every type of product line where I've tested it, including now, computers.

In this new, still changing, world, though, box-makers of computers expect businesses to have cloud backup, etc etc, and consider desktop equipment a "consumer staple" not an investment in infrastructure. 

Computers, even desktops, are like phones now -- 3-years and it breaks.  The limit is designed in. 

This year, I had a Dell business grade desktop break down, and it didn't quite make 10 years as the previous Dell Desktop I had went.  In fact, I gave away the old Dell Desktop still in working order after 10 years.  This one, an even higher top-of-the-line went after 8 years, or so.

So I am not recommending Dell business computers anymore.

Each time you have to buy a computer, look around for the business that puts the most wear and tear on the hardware in the least amount of time, and uses the most capacity.

Store clerks hear "word processing" and sell you the LEAST rugged, lowest capacity hardware they have in stock. 

But the truth is, writing FOR A LIVING is not the same as writing letters to family and an occasional student paper.

The "change" in the world that has forced a change in the writer's business model is the shift from typewriter (a 20 year investment) to computer (a 3 year consumable tool). 

What you need to find each time you must shop for office equipment is the MOST rugged, highest capacity, fastest, smartest, top of the line business office tool you can possibly get.

Once you've found what the "real" high-productivity, mission-critical businesses use, then be sure to get the version that has the biggest harddrive, the most memory, and the fastest processors.  Even if you must start your career with "refurbished" computers, pick the ones used in high-volume offices (not your Doctor's front desk).

What you are doing, as a novel writer, is more demanding of your equipment than what the worker-bees in office cubicles do.  It more closely resembles what Gamers do, or perhaps what Videogame Producers and animators do.

Look at the equipment used by Hollywood post-production companies -- that is the equipment that can stand up under the pounding it takes to produce a novel.

But even so, you still need cloud subscription backup as well as your own external harddrive backup device.  Either of those could just POOF disappear with all your data without notice.  Lawsuits and apologies, even cash remuneration won't replace novel manuscripts. 

You can't afford what you really need, so create a "make-do" situation with a solid, well thought through, plan for the upgrade your first Advance Payment will finance.

For years to come, most of what you make will go to equipment upgrades, publicity trips, and many expenses that are not deductible. 

You need to order computers online, from the manufacturer, on the website page reserved for businesses not home-users.

Watch the world as it evolves for where the heaviest usage of computing power moves after it leaves Hollywood post-production studios.  That is where you will find the equipment it takes to create novels, and keep on creating without losing and doing over. 

Only a writer understands what novel writing entails relative to what is involved in, say, Term Papers. 

You can "get away with" using bottom-of-the-line equipment for years, but when you run the figures for your business, you will find the amount of time and energy you spend keeping your equipment functioning grows over time.  If you somehow swing top-of-the-line new equipment, you suddenly find the amount of time you can devote to word-creation triples or better.

This is your profit margin.  Calculate it.  Then decide if you want to "be a writer." 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 22 - Making a Profit At Writing In A Capitalist World

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 22
Making a Profit At Writing In A Capitalist World

Previous Parts of Marketing Fiction In A Changing World are indexed here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/index-to-marketing-fiction-in-changing.html

"Profit" is a term considered anathema in some circles - with fairly good reason.  The term "profit" has come to signify getting something you didn't earn, something actually earned by the sweat of others.

Those who oppose Capitalism could not destroy Capitalism because it is so good at racking up Profit.  Everyone wants "profit" when it is defined as "something for nothing."

But "something for nothing" is not the definition of profit nor has it anything to do with Capitalism.  Capitalism is about personal, individual ownership, which makes copyrights a form of capital.

-------------quote from a quick Google search------------

cap·i·tal·ism
ˈkapədlˌizəm/
noun
an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
synonyms: free enterprise, private enterprise, the free market; enterprise culture
"the capitalism of emerging nations"
-----------end quote---------------

Google's definition of Capitalism calls it a "system" -- a political and economic system.

Capitalism is not a system and has nothing to do with politics or society.  Capitalism is "not a bug in the social system; it's a feature of Reality."

I saw this item on Quora back in June 2016 and admired the precision of this definition.

-------------quote-------------
https://www.quora.com/Why-would-a-working-class-person-prefer-capitalism-to-communism

First please understand that you can't really compare the two since they are different things. Communism is a socioeconomic concept while capitalism is a solely economic concept. Therefore there are no social policies which can be definitely associated with capitalism, which means the comparison needs to be exclusively economic or based on specific cases (e.g. USA vs. USSR). Also, no country on earth practices or has practiced true communism; by definition communism supersedes the concept of the state with small, self-organized communities, therefore neither the USSR nor China were "true" communist systems.
Now, why would a working class person prefer capitalism? I'd say because they would not enjoy living in a communist society.
-----------end quote---------- 
I could write this entire blog entry about the concept "working class" and how it can not possibly be applied to the USA.  The US Constitution can only function well if the populace understands there is not now nor never has been any such thing as "class" in the human species.  
SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE WRITERS NOTE: all bets are off if you are depicting Aliens. Create a species where "class" is a biological imperative, then launch your Love At First Sight story and see what happens next.
But where only humans are involved, the USA Declaration of Independence and the Constitution nailed it perfectly.  These founding documents are based on "All Men Are Created Equal" and we've fought out the battle over the idea of "all men" (which now includes males of different colors) and the idea that "men" includes women, too.  In other words, our social history has been directed along the lines of enhancing Individualism by turning individuals loose to craft their own destinies in their own pursuit of happiness ever after. 
These ancient words mean that in the USA, there is no such thing as class, working or otherwise.  There is no such thing as "the" 1% -- the ultra rich are "a 1%" not "the 1%."  
Social systems that divide humans into classes are called Aristocracies.  The USA views Aristocracy as resoundingly repudiated by thousands of years of utter failure.
Without a "working class" you can not have an Aristocracy.  
So in the USA, there are people who make a living by working, but they are not a "class" -- at any time, any given individual, can become independently wealthy, self-employed, employ others to work for him/her/whatever, go back to school on a scholarship, or get injured (perhaps in war action) and go on the dole or a well earned pension. Humans do not come in "classes."  Humans are resilient and adaptable - ever changing.  We all work.  There is no such thing as "working class."   
Writers work, but do not form a "class" in any sense.  We have nothing in common with one another, which is the exact trait we have in common -- unique individuality. 
That is the precise condition under which Capitalism thrives, flourishes, and produces far more than is invested.  Capitalism is an "undocumented feature" of the Reality Matrix that writers are uniquely suited to exploit.  
The term Capitalism has been co-opted by politicians and redefined.  Academics subsequently wrote a lot of books for Economics courses (often required for various majors in college) because of their Publish Or Perish business model.

To understand Capitalism, think about raw, basic survival, say on Mars or some other harsh planet among the stars. To understand what a Main Character or Hero is and does that is so admired, the writer must understand the reality of Capitalism with all the mis-directions and academics stripped away.

By stripping away that co-opted idea-grab that Capitalism is a system (thus created by humans), a writer creating fictional worlds peopled by Aliens or driven by Romance can use the core concept Capitalism to
a) create alien worlds that are truly alien but comprehensible and
b) to run their own writing business.

The basic idea of Capitalism goes like this:
A) Person One has a resource they can't use
B) Person Two has an ability to use that resource but does not have the resource
C) Person One LOANS that resource to Person Two
D) Person Two uses that resource
E) Person Two gives that resource back to Person One with some extra from what using the resource produced (amount determined by prior contract)
F) Person Two keeps all the rest produced by using that resource as personal property.
G) Person Two now has the resource and the ability to use it to create more resources
H) Person One now has the resource and more but still no ability to use it

That resource is CAPITAL, and the process of loaning it and collecting the return OF Capital and ON Capital is Capitalism.

And the story of where that Capital goes repeats the cycle as Person One finds something else to invest the resource into and Person Two keeps on producing more and more, reinvesting excess resource to grow the business and employ more people.

In the Publishing Business, the writer is Person One who has a Resource (unpublished manuscript) they can't use, and the Publisher is Person Two who has ability to use that resource but does not have the resource.

Writers LICENSE their copyright (not SELL, license, a kind of loan) to the publisher, thus loaning the publisher the resource under terms set by contract.

The Publisher uses the manuscript, turns it into a book and gets people to buy it.

After the set term of the contract, the license the publisher holds expires, and all the licensed rights revert to the author (capital is returned) plus all the royalties paid in between.

Today, in this new world, Person One now puts the book up on Kindle or other e-book format and the reputation for that byline or title created by Person Two (the publisher) continues to sell the book, fewer copies but at a greater profit to the writer per copy. Thus the writer "capitalizes" on the Publisher's hard and expert work creating reputation.

Publishing is a perfect example of Capitalism in action and has nothing at all to do with governmental forms or academic economic theories of "society."

Capitalism has to do with combining talents of individual people whose individual talents would not earn them a living -- but when "packaged" by an organizer (like a publisher or producer) those individuals' resources can be transformed into potatoes and oranges bought at the supermarket.

The problem for working writers is that what they get paid, net-net after decades in the business, about averages out to potatoes and oranges.  A good, widely published, widely reviewed writer can cover a modest lifestyle of room, board, clothing, transportation, -- today, maybe not medical care.

SFWA (the Science Fiction Writers of America) carries a healthcare policy for members that is very expensive but better than nothing.  Few can afford it, yet all need it.  Writing is way too sedentary a profession to maintain health well. The future of Obamacare is not certain, and switching policies can elevate the cost.

Nobody I know works harder, longer hours for less profit than fiction writers.

When all the time is accounted for, time mastering craft skills, time learning, time researching, time dreaming, time writing, time re-writing, time in copy-editing, time formatting, time repairing computers used to write, time marketing, time interacting with readers, time studying markets, -- already the writer of fiction makes less than minimum wage (even if they don't raise that dollar amount of minimum wage soon!)

In my experience, the most creative, sharpest minds contributing to gross domestic product get paid the least per hour worked (over say, 25 years average annual income) if they are working writers. There will be years topping $100,000 income, but then the IRS takes a chunk of that calculated on the idea that this income level will be sustained year after year.

Long ago, the tax code allowed writers to "income average" over 5 years, smoothing out the spikes and valleys of tax owed, taking into account the irregularity and unpredictability of writing income.

So to the TIME spent creating and writing and marketing (even with an Agent, it's a lot of time spent marketing), add the time spent on bookkeeping and accounting and tax preparation -- or the expense of out-sourcing that work.

You aren't "making a profit" at writing until you have paid all those bills, plus your own salary, rent for your home-office and business machines and their supplies (yes, ink for your printer is a business expense paid before declaring a profit).

And that does not even begin to account for capital invested before a career can take off, money for classes, lessons, travel to and from such schooling, computers, phones, tablets of various types constantly upgraded and the professional-level software necessary to produce copy that can be submitted in the proper formats.

See?  There's that word, capital.

Running a business is all about capital investment vs. return on investment (called ROI).

The point of Capitalism is to invest a resource, then turn the crank of the business model, and return that invested Capital, keeping what's left over (after all expenses) as Profit which is then REINVESTED into that business or another business.  Capital is recycled Profit.  They are the same thing. Capital is not MONEY -- Capital is a resource, like a copyright or a house you buy with a mortgage and then rent at more than it costs you.

Money is to be spent on expenses.  Capital is to be invested and recovered plus a profit.

https://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Teach-Middle-ebook/dp/B0175P82RA/

If your house's roof starts to spring leaks, it can cost less to patch it if you only consider the money you will spend this month. But then another leak will happen, and another patch.  You also have to consider your time as money -- to go get the materials and climb up there and patch the roof yourself is time spent not-writing, and money just spent.

Your time and your money regarded as capital would lead you to a different approach to solving the problem of a leaky roof.  Call the best roofer in town, replace the entire roof this month with a top professional job and materials (not Home Depot).  You do it that way, you have made a "Capital Investment."  Your capital (time and money) will now "work for you" and pay back in "royalties" (a little each year the roof does not cost you anything).

If you plan to charge the cost on a credit card, and pay it back slowly, the interest the card charges you is NOT a capital investment by you.  It is money spent. Calculated carefully, it can turn out that getting a whole new roof will not "pay for itself" (return your Capital) because "revolving credit" is way too expensive.

A roof can cost the entirety of a book advance plus a royalty payment or two.

Your copyright is your capital.

You invest it into a Publisher, trusting them to use it to make a profit.

You can invest the "interest" you get from loaning your capital (advance+royalties) in a roof. Your house is capital.  You've taken your "profit" (advance+royalties) and reinvested that capital in a capital investment which itself pays dividends. And you still own your copyright.

Your copyright is your capital.

Capitalism, the definition specifies, is a system that assumes you own your copyrights and can rent them out, or sub-license them how you choose.

Is Capitalism a "system" -- or is it a simple fact of surviving in the real world where no individual has all the skills and resources necessary to survive?

Capitalism is the system of contract law that allows a person with a resource to loan that resource to someone who has the ability to use that resource.

The ability to write songs is a resource, the songs written are capital -- but it takes an orchestra and maybe several singers to make a profitable YouTube Video of that song and get millions of hits and launch careers.  The song writer still owns the copyright on the song.

His or her heirs can inherit that copyright.

Copyright law specifies a number of years before it goes into public domain -- i.e. is taken from the rightful owners, the heirs -- but there is no statute of limitation on owning a house or a farm property. There is no difference between a copyright and a farm.

Art, paintings or photographs, fabric patterns, animations, all kinds of art we create become our capital which we license but still own.

Whether creating such works of art is profitable depends on the size of the market that will pay for it - i.e. depends on popularity.

Commercial Art is a different field from Fine Art.  Both create capital. Usually Commercial Art is the only kind that turn that capital into capital+profit.

In the sharing economy, the open source economy, you are free to give away your copyright, and get paid in enhanced reputation - name recognition, publicity, or just spiritual gratitude.

To some extent, people using your open-source resource will toss some money into your PayPal account from time to time, but the "open source' movement is thriving without money.  It runs on pure capital alone, or maybe some bitcoin here and there.

Fan Fiction is that kind of sharing-economy, open source resource, where the writer gets paid in name-recognition, reputation, and writes things for other people to pick up and write about.

So there is a profit to be made off the capital investment of time/skill etc., but that profit is not convertible to money.

Capital and profit are not money.

In Capitalism, capital and profit can be converted to money, and money can be converted to capital and profit.  If your unusable resource is money, you can loan that money at bank-interest+risk, and if the gamble does not fail, you get your money back, plus inflation, plus a profit.

One thing writers must understand about making a profit is that bank interest is not profit.  The tax law treats it as profit and taxes interest, but banks deliberately calculate and set the rate of interest on CD's and savings accounts to cover all their expenses (accountants, tellers, Cloud Megs, hacker intrusions, etc) and give you just exactly enough more dollars to keep your purchasing power going down.  Yes, you lose purchasing power by putting money in a CD and reinvesting the interest.  The interest rate is calculated to be less than inflation, but in such a way that you don't see it.  You look at your numbers and think you have more, but you actually have less.  That is what retail banks do for a living, and they are good at it.

Writers and other artists, being in one of the lowest paid professions, must understand this quirk of tax law - retail bank interest is return of capital, not a payment of a profit, so when you pay taxes on interest, you are actually giving the government some of your capital, reducing your ability to earn in your old age.  The only way out is to get out of the retail level of finance.  Deal wholesale.

To deal wholesale in capital and money you need a lot of capital -- a lot -- so your capital can be invested and earn money you can spend without reducing your capital.  In fact, well invested (Mutual Funds are a good start, but their fees reduce earnings potential), your capital can grow at or above the rate of inflation while yielding a good living.

The trick of it all is to get your mind around the truth about Capitalism.  It is not a social "system" -- it is a fact of reality: humans are interdependent; no man is an island.

Money can be used as capital, but it is not capital.  When used as capital, money becomes a commodity.  It can be traded as a commodity on the international currency exchanges. Money can be a thing in itself, unrelated to potatoes and oranges. In math, this is called Units Conversion.

So the operational, everyday-useful definition of Capitalism is the contract-structure that allows using other people's resources in a way that benefits them most, and yourself second.

As a writer, who owns copyrights, that means you are the one who is benefited most.

You start out with nothing, create something, loan it out, get it back plus a profit, and can loan it again and get paid again, and you still own it.

The cost of creating that something, the overhead expenses you invest in your business, have to be less than what your copyrights bring in for you to declare a profit -- and that means your business has to pay you a living wage before you can declare a profit.

It is very rare for a writer or any creative artist to make an actual profit from their work.  Only during the (usually few) years when the work is reaching its broadest audience is the income more than the cost of doing business as a creative artist or a performing artist.

A reason for that hides within the structure of the big businesses that own publishing or production.

Yes, movie and TV studios and the independent producers who sell them shows are also owned by other types of businesses.  In the case of films or stage productions, the real owners are often "Investors" (individuals with extra millions to invest on the chance they will get their money back and much more).  Many times "Investors" put up the money for a stage play or other production more for the prestige than profit, and are happy to break even.

In this "Changing World" impacted by electronic distribution, Kindle to Netflix to promoting books on blogs, the vast and significant change in the Fiction Writer's business model is also now impacting non-fiction.

The biggest casualty in 2016 is the NEWS BUSINESS.

Here is an article from FORBES about Snapchat and its impact on the News business

http://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2016/06/19/what-snapchat-tells-us-about-the-future-of-news-and-information-gathering/#440c2d41480d




 -- by appealing to the youngest people, Snapchat is setting the stage for adult behavior 20 years hence.  And in this infrastructure shift to electronic media and personal connectivity, which is so deep and so basic (more so than maybe the Printing Press), 20 years is the blink of an eye.  Do you remember cell phones from 20 years ago?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mobile_phones

That Wikipedia article shows the evolution of from 1947.  Scan down the article and look at what changes in 20 years. Realize a writing career can be 40 or 50 years because writers don't usually "retire" with a pension.

Facebook is buying these communications start-ups that appeal to specific demographics (target audiences) for a reason, but I doubt that Facebook's execs think of themselves as running a News Service (like AP or Reuters) designed to gather facts and sift out rumors and opinion.

Here is a quote from the Forbes article on Snapchat, tailor made for writers looking to make a Profit off their writing skills in a Capitalist World.

---------quote----------
Most adults, if they have even heard of Snapchat, know it as the place where messages disappear after a few seconds. But the company is adding more and more options, and it is now the network on which young people not only use different kinds of messages, and no, not all messages self-destruct in three seconds, some stay in the in-tray for up to 24 hours, and others can be kept for as long as the sender likes. What’s more, young people even read the company’s online magazine, as well as using other channels it has set up, including one to send money.
So while most of us grownups don’t even know what Snapchat is, Evan Spiegel, now elevated to the status of visionary, and his team have created a company valued already at some $20 billion—so far he’s turned down a $3 billion offer, and then reportedly another for $4 billion—and that is now the new television for young people unable to disconnect from their smartphones, and that 23 media partners are now using to reach a younger generation of readers, attaining millions of hits each month, and that other brands are using to advertise their wares during the Super Bowl. This is highly profitable advertising, as well as non-intrusive, unlike the trash that we have to put up with on other networks and publications unless we install an ad-blocker.

--------end quote---------

This business model based on advertising is one that novelists have never needed to tackle, but TV Series writers must internalize to get the climaxes (cliff hangers) just before the formulaic commercial breaks.  News (televised or internet) packages are structured the exact same way for the same reason.  A Package is that little bit of actual news sandwiched between commercial breaks.

We'll explore more of that Forbes article in Part 23 of Marketing Fiction In A Changing World, looking at the future of our business model.

Fiction publishing and news publishing (such as newspapers on paper and magazines printed on paper, even Radio and TV News or the old fashioned News Reel at the movies) were never "profitable."

Historically, book and Magazine Publishers were owned by other bigger businesses or investors specifically for the "tax write-off" and the Prestige, entree to "the right" cocktail parties and social networks.

In non-fiction, the News business also grew up as a hybrid "public service" or charitable way of paying society back for profits made on other products.  From the 1700's and "movable type" the local town newspaper was a low-margin business at the very best.

News (whether you view it as fiction or non-fiction!) is a capital intensive business.

To gather the product (information), individual people have to go out where the events are occurring, observe, gather and check facts, then cast all that data into the format of "information" by writing the article.  The article has to be transported back to the editing office,  edited, shaped to fit the newspaper's available space, laid out, compiled into print, printed on paper (which has to be trucked in from a manufacturer -- likewise ink -- never cheap), then the paper has to be hauled off to be offered to reluctant buyers.

All those people have to be paid, and all that stuff has to be bought, and all that transportation costs.  This is also true of online newspaper distribution operations such as Huffington Post.

Print papers combined the advertising model with the pay or subscribe model and survived right up until now.  They are still trying to find a way to make money online.

So historically, print and broadcast news operations are labor intensive, capital intensive operations that were owned by larger businesses, mostly for tax write-off, a public service, and prestige (in the case of "news" of course, power over political processes is another form of profit).  Even with advertising and subscriptions, even at their most profitable, news operations have never been stand-alone operations that made a profit.

Publishing and News are two kinds of business that have traditionally been designed specifically to lose money.  So they paid writers and journalists as little as possible to keep them providing material.  These businesses weren't cheating.  They simply could not afford to pay wriers and journalists more and still break even.

Today, in this changing world, Publishing has been moved from being a prestige-crown-jewel to a profit making operation.  That is one reason the price of paper books and e-books are so high, relative to what those prices were in terms of a loaf of bread a hundred years ago.

With razor thin margins, publishers had to 'consolidate' (buy each other until there are only a handful of publishers left who cover the whole world).  So they don't publish books that "ought to be published" or "deserve to be published" any more. They publish books the computer algorythms predict will sell very broadly and very quickly.  Likewise "News" publishes what will captivate the most eyes.

Even though writers are paid a percentage of the cover price for a book, and thus have a built-in wage hike for inflation, that percentage has not gone up, but agent's fees have gone from 10% to 15%, taxes (state, federal and local) have gone up.  Writers' margins have narrowed while publishers are just barely making it unless they have a few blockbusters in a year.

News, likewise, is now making a transition to a stand-alone for-profit business, and therefore needs a much wider audience for commercials and subscriptions.  The only strategy available to get that broad an audience is to make the News more Entertaining (fictionalize it, jazz it up, create a "narrative" that will keep people glued to their screens).

This shift in the non-fiction writer's business model has caused less capital (time, effort, energy) to be expended on fact-checking, thoroughness, meticulousness.  Non-fiction (News) that is fact-rich is a very expensive to create, and the truth is the market is too small.

Very few people will pay (by watching commercials or subscribing) to get a listing of un-exciting, dry, boring fact after fact.  A few will tune in for a "story."

The cure is, of course, to make fact-gathering much cheaper (Go-Pro cameras in drones?), so that news can be published in fact-rich but boring summaries to that tiny audience that prefers it.

Sometime soon, a Science Fiction Romance writer will write a book set in a world built around a new business model for publishing -- both fact and fiction publishing.

The technology is being implemented rapidly.  Something obvious is staring us all in the face that we are just missing.  The writer who sees it will write the classic everyone refers to for the next hundred years (like 1984, or The Cold Equations).

It may be as simple as what some indie bloggers, and web-radio and YouTube personalities are already doing, gathering and presenting the facts that contradict the "narrative" adopted by the bigger news operations, broadcast network or cable news.

News and Book Publishing may become, once again, not-for-profit operations that just break even in a good year and are tax write-offs in other years.

Where would your career fit into that future?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 4: Understanding The Headlines You Use For Springboards by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 4
Understanding The Headlines You Use For Springboards
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts of this series:
Last week:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

And long ago:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

The Story Springboards series:

 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/index-to-story-springboards-series-by.html

I've been illustrating how to use a Headline as one ingredient in your Springboard via my posts on Google+ and Facebook. 

You've heard the phrase, "Ripped From The Headlines" as part of the hype for a film or TV Miniseries.  It tries to sell you on the idea that you must see this film (or read this book) because it is relevant to the world as you already know it.

Last week we examined the role of PR (Public Relations the mathematical discipline underlying advertising) in self-publishing.

If you license your novel to a big publisher, you don't have to know anything about PR beyond filling out the questionnaire the publicity department sends you, and doing any radio or TV interviews that come your way. 

If you self-publish, you need to know much more. 

It's all about the business model of the Entertainment Industry.

In this blog, I've talked about the impact of new technology on the writer's business model as the e-book has emerged since 2007.  Yes, I've been posting on this blog since March 2007 - almost 7 years now.

In 2007, few were aware of the potential in the e-book market - and self-publishing was an idiotic idea.

Today, the big publishers are aware, and perhaps alarmed, at the emergence of the Indie writer and a plethora of Indie publishers.

The same is happening in Music and Film - YouTube is a game changer. 

The underlying concept of "Business Model" is morphing fast enough to frighten those who have spent a lifetime building a big business.

So today we'll look at the business of Journalism.

Last week, I mentioned in passing how publishing in the early 20th Century was a business run for the purpose of losing money.\

Publishing companies were owned by large, profitable corporations as a tax write-off, and therefore could spend a lot of money publishing and promoting "Important" books filled with ideas too abstract, or too difficult, for a person of average education to grasp.

In fact, the average person just wouldn't be interested in such ideas. 

Remember, Silent Films and the Talkies burst into the fiction scene during that publishing era.

Movie moguls made "stars" of comely actors -- or even those would couldn't act. 

During those decades, newspapers, weekly and monthly magazines, radio news and the News Reel (a short headlines with snatches of film shown between features at a movie theater) were the sources of information people used.

Then came TV News, a daily newsreel that quickly replaced radio news.  Radio news is back now, but call-in, talk show, and commentary dominate.  Radio is mostly web-radio.  "Spectrum" is expensive, sold at government auction.  A lot of it is going to smartphone service.  Satellite radio is struggling financially.

So, against that historical background, let's look at how Journalism has morphed in response to advancing technology.

Last week we established why fiction writers need to understand Journalism as a business. 

I've pointed out many times the Journalism background of many famous writers.

Most particularly, you should note the autobiographical works of the screenwriter (whose writing you know very well, even if you've never noticed his name) Allan Cole.



and later, Allan Cole's screenwriting career launch, and how having been a professional journalist helped:



And here's a newly available copy of Allan Cole's first written screenplay -- that got optioned many times, but never made.  It's mentioned in Hollywood Misadventures and now you can read it:




This non-fiction writing for profit first business model doesn't just apply to screenwriting. 

Journalism, and/or general non-fiction writing gives a huge boost to Mystery or Romance writers.

Here's one I found offering a freebie copy via BookBub.com
Susanne O'Leary -- non-fic turned fic writer shows another path:



-----------------
About O'Leary -- from Amazon:

I was born in Sweden and live in Ireland (married to an Irishman). I started my writing career by writing non-fiction and wrote two books about health and fitness (I am a trained fitness teacher). While writing these books, I discovered how much I loved the actual writing process. My then editor gave me the idea to write a fun novel based on my experiences as a diplomat’s wife. This became my debut novel, ‘Diplomatic Incidents’ (the e-book version is called ‘Duty Free’), published in 2001. I wrote three further novels, ‘European Affairs’ (now as an e-book with the title ‘Villa Caramel’), ‘Fresh Powder’ (2006) and ‘Finding Margo’(2007). The latter two were published by New Island Books in Dublin. In 2010, when the publishing industry started to decline, I broke away from both publisher and agent and e-published my backlist, along with two novels that were with my agent for submission. Since then I have written and e-published four further novels and, as a result, now have ten books out there in the e-book market worldwide. I write mainly in the women’s fiction genre, some chick-lit, some contemporary romance, with two historical novels and two detective stories thrown into the mix. I enjoyed writing those but my first love is romantic fiction with a lot of humour and heart. My bestselling romantic comedy, Fresh Powder was translated to German last year and, with the title ‘Frischer Schnee’, is selling well on Amazon.de. My website: http://www.susanne-oleary.com Blog: http://susannefromsweden.wordpress.com/ Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Susanne-OLeary/e/B001JOXAJO
-------------

So, as far as staying marketable in a world where the very business model is morphing under your feet, never mind the background drumbeat of shifting audience taste, the beginning writer should not skip the non-fiction-career-step.

If you think you should skip that step, read more biographies of writers like the type of writer you want to be.  It's possible you are one of the few who should skip the non-fiction step.

It's true, I didn't work in journalism before selling fiction.  However, the connection to that discipline is deep within me.  I was raised by a mother and father who both worked in journalism.  I lived and breathed those disciplines from before I knew how to say a complete sentence.  So don't use me as an example of skipping that step.

So, we've talked about how fiction publishing in the early 20th century was a "for-loss" business, not a "for-profit" business. 

Since loss was not only allowed, but encouraged, especially in high-tax years, "Important" books had a chance to get well published. 

But what about Journalism?

Today, headlines are full of lay-off notices at big Newspapers, of bankruptcy filings of all kinds of print-media outlets, the sale of famous print-magazines to other publishing groups (that would change the editorial slant).

Simultaneously, professional journalism is finally moving online.

As with the advent of e-books which was ignored as a trivial market-share by Big Publishers, so print news outlets ignored the blogosphere until things like The Huffington Post changed the landscape.

Twitter is regarded by TV News and Finance as way over-priced at $50/share, but at the same time is seen as THE one and only place to 'be' with a breaking story.  All the big news media put headlines there. 

How did the journalism business model get to a twitter-driven base? 

Well, the path is parallel to that of fiction publishing.

This is the little-known fact dredged from history that you should take away from this blog.

In the mid-20th century, News was not a for-profit game. 

Prior to Radio and TV News, there was print-media news.  And that ran at a slim, but real profit margin.

Newspapers didn't make a profit from NEWS.  They made their PROFIT from advertisements, especially "The Classified" (think Monster.com ) And grocery coupon advertising. 

Before Radio and TV, News stories were printed as the bait to collect eyeballs to deliver to the advertisers.

That business model element was adapted to Radio News which was also advertising driven.

When Radio was replaced (mostly) by TV News, again it was advertising driven.

News Reels in theaters were sandwiched between feature films, cartoons, and serials, but customers paid for access to that bundle.  Even in the mid-20th century, box-office did not support the expense of renting the viewing bundle -- concessions did, and still do, represent a theater's profit margin.

Today, theaters have reduced access to 1 feature film plus a whole lot of advertising reels (except of course the material is digital, not on reels of film).

Around 1985, when the Internet was beginning to connect individual households to the outside world (Prodigy, AOL, local ISPs), you begin to see an inflection point where this old, stable business model suddenly would morph into what we're seeing today.

What we're seeing today is essentially chaos.  That always happens at major transformations -- for better or for worse, transformation has a chaos phase.  We're in it.

The point to remember is that NEWS -- the pithy reporting of facts -- has only ever existed to attract and hold eyeballs to advertising. 

Advertising has gone from random, artistic expression to mathematically based PR. 

It's germane to your business model as a writer. 

Once you get your mind around the longer, historical perspective of the "changing world" of the fiction-delivery-system I keep talking about on this blog, you will be able to chart your path, as a writer, into the rapidly morphing future.

It has often been said that the internet (and e-book creation/distribution) is an Event in History as significant to society as the advent of the movable type printing press.

The printing press was the high-tech innovation that heralded the overthrow of Aristocracy as the main means of government.

OK, we have a new type of "aristocrat" today -- but really, it's not the same.

We are at an inflection point which, after all the turbulence is over, will be regarded as heralding another new era of society.

There are those who are pushing (hard) to eliminate the entire philosophical concept of "copyright" -- of Intellectual Property.  If you think something, it must be because others influenced you, so what you think belongs to everyone.

It's an interesting argument (worthy of many novels with all kinds of themes!).

The Internet and self-publishing e-books (and POD) are going to change things you wouldn't expect fiction to touch, never mind change.

To figure out where you, personally, fit into the new pattern (that hasn't emerged yet), study the business model with a long view.

Get used to thinking of fiction and non-fiction (and docudrama or News Analysis or Opinion Op-Ed) as simply the bait for eyeballs.

The business-model is really just about gluing eyes to screens long enough to flash an advertisement crafted of PR-informed-techniques, to arouse EMOTION to the point where people form herds and stampede toward the advertiser's goal.

Learn to see the TV News that way.

Learn to figure out why they do segments on this or that topic, and why they say one thing but avoid another -- why the choose the language they do. 

You will see how the emotion aroused during a segment is used by the advertising between segments.

It's easiest to see on "News" -- but now watch some fiction shows.

Now analyze the advertisements to discover what audience those TV shows are aimed at. 

You have to reverse-engineer the composition you are watching on TV.

Note that BOOKS don't usually (yet) carry advertising except the publisher's list of other books at the back.

It's coming.  Watch for it.  Embedding video ads in e-books is only a step away.

Here is an item on how much self-publishing writers make from writing:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygreenfield/2013/12/09/how-much-money-do-self-published-authors-make/

If those writers could make up the difference by embedding ads, would they?

How would that change what they put in their writing? 

Nobody is going to TELL a writer exactly how PR works, you know.  It is a secret -- well hidden in plain sight.

Stuffy, obtuse college textbooks teach you about it, but who reads those without being forced to take the course?

Advertising is all about emotion.

I saw an article in December explaining that all advertising now relies entirely on rousing emotional pitch, and never on actual information.  I've re-surveyed some ads, and yes, that seems to be true.

So maybe it's a trend.

Parallel to that shift in advertising, we have the dilution of News content, and the invasion of "slant" into "hard news." 

As I pointed out previously, I was raised in a journalism family. 

The cardinal rule of journalistic writing (e.g. news stories for news papers) other than write with an 8 year old's vocabulary and syntax, is to choose language that is absolutely devoid of any hint of your own personal opinion.

In Part 5 I referred you to a non-fiction book about the history of science fiction in which a certain work is called "melodramatic."  "Calling" is revealing your own personal opinion.  An adjective like "melodramatic" refers to a quality which is only present subjectively.

The usage has changed the meaning over time. 

In the mid-20th Century, the Merriam-Webster definition -- ( emotional in a way that is very extreme or exaggerated : extremely dramatic or emotional ) held true.

The word was used to refer to an "extreme" or "exaggerated" situation - a caricature of reality.

The more modern Urban Dictionary says:
The state of being overly emotional - therefore often in a situation that does not warrant such a strong reaction.

Can you see the subjective judgement components?

What is "extreme" -- well, that's your opinion, and might not be mine.

What is "exaggerated"  to you may seem in correct proportion to me, or even understated.

What is "overly" emotional?  What exact degree of emotion does in fact warrant 100% response?  What is "over" what?  Where that borderline is depends on who you are and what else you've experienced.

So a JOURNALIST can't use the word Melodramatic -- not ever, except when quoting someone, and then only to illustrate how judgmental that person seems.

The word itself is commentary -- and Hard News is factual and only factual.

So there are a hundred little tricks of the trade journalists used to use (assiduously) to keep all hint of opinion out of News.

Another characteristic of Old Fashioned Hard News was that, while every outlet had an editorial slant (clearly delineated in editorials and never hinted at in News items), and each outlet selected things to report on according to their slant, they did not CRAFT A NARRATIVE.

Today, TV News (and most other media outlets) blatantly admits (via TV anchors) that they omit any item that "does not fit the narrative" being crafted to justify their editorial slant -- no matter how much hypocrasy oozes through the cracks.

 Very few people channel-surf News programs and do relentless contrast/compare studies to sift out the few real Hard News Facts buried amidst the torrent of opinion.

That group of channel surfers is so small that most people have no idea there is a Narrative being "sold" (via precise mathematical PR techniques).  And in fact, if you told them, they'd consider you a bit daft, or maybe a flat-out liar.

To understand what's happened to the world of fiction publishing (and how to leverage that to the advantage of the Romance Genre HEA credibility), we'll look at the world of TV News.  The changes have happened in lockstep in both fields, and the reasons for those changes in both are the same.

The reason is PR.

Behind that, the reason is quite simply profit. 

It's a business-model shift that caused a shift in content. 

The shift in content is easiest to see in News -- but is also visible in fiction.

Next week, in Part 5, we'll look at some fiction -- and in Part 6 the following week, we'll examine the News Game. 

Put the two perspectives together and you will see what you can do to gain credibility for the HEA and Romance in all its crossed-genres.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Business Model of Writers In a changing World Part 2: Google+

This post is about the career (not at all atypical) of a powerful Science Fiction/Fantasy writer as it relates to the Business Cycle (one of those boring economics things we have to force ourselves to pay attention to.)

I know many such life stories (from many decades of publishing career-stories), but I want to share this one with you because this fellow's success was particularly well deserved -- yet the business cycle swamped him, too. 

Tobias S. Buckell on Amazon

There he is on Amazon. 

He hit the brick wall of 2008, and now he's BACK!!!  And he's using the tools I've been telling you about since 2007 -- Web 2.0, social networking, interactivity, and now crowd sourcing.  We live in a new world, and some writers will grab hold of it and leverage it to commercial success.

I found the link to his blog on Google+  -- a social network that's recently added Communities (as Facebook has Groups, and others have other ways to sub-set your connections.)

Here's the blog entry I found on Google+

http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2012/12/17/how-i-used-kickstarter-to-reboot-a-book-series-and-my-career-and-maybe-my-life/

https://plus.google.com/u/0/116892646782163010765/posts  is the fellow who posted the link on Google+ 

2008 is widely acknowledged as the time when the Housing Market crumbled, and the USA went into severe financial crisis right in the middle of a big Presidential Election.  Yeah, but it was all easily predictable by SF writers in 2006 and 2007 -- you didn't even need to follow financials to see it coming.  Book sales told the story, a "Leading Indicator" as they say. 

Here's a quote from Buckell's blog post:

----------Quote--------------
My first science fiction novel debuted in 2006. Crystal Rain was flavored with a science fiction stew of Caribbean refugees fled to a lost world, steampunk, a dangerous dreadlocked cyborg in a trench coat, and an ancient evil pressing down on our heroes. The first of my Xenowealth novels, it was followed by Ragamuffin in 2007 (a Nebula nominee), and Sly Mongoose in 2008. I was in my mid to late twenties. I wanted to write more. I wanted to grab the dream I had since I was 14 (and indeed in 2008, after much hustling, most of my money was coming from fiction and I was pretty much living the life I’d been striving toward).

The books didn’t do too well in chain bookstores, each time getting a smaller order. As we know from real estate: location location location. So each book sold less in bookstores. It was quite dramatic with the step between Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin (where a small buy-in from Wal-Mart even buoyed first time reader numbers, but was not repeated for following books). And yet…

…readers of the series compensated for the loss of chain bookstore placement by switching to ordering online off Amazon. Independent stores were still really nice to me (special shout out to Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, which always was responsible for moving the highest number of copies). Library orders still remained okay. Sales didn’t increase, but they weren’t dying. In fact, Sly Mongoose slightly grew in hardcover (it just came out in paperback this year after a 3 year delay, so those numbers are still trickling in). Tor had agreed to buy two more books in the series, giving me my planned 5 book series.

But I am nothing if not a realist. In later 2008, when I met my editor after seeing that Sly Mongoose was barely carried in any bookstores we had an honest discussion about the chances the 4th Xenowealth book would have. It would probably get even less bookstore placement, being harder for readers to stumble on. Based on the core, awesome, dedicated readers I already have, we guessed that it would do okay. Just like Sly Mongoose it would get enough readers to offset the loss in bookstore readers, and indies would help. But overall, I wouldn’t be growing sales much. Just ticking up slightly.

Some have wondered if my publisher killed the series. No. It was a mutual decision hashed out over a business lunch, the topic raised by me. My editor and I thought, hey, let’s change direction. I started working on a novel called Arctic Rising.
-------------END QUOTE------------

Now right after the end of that quote, Buckell tells of how life dealt him blow after blow -- a typical Pluto Transit situation but I don't know his natal chart, good things (wife pregnant with twins) and bad things (he had health disaster) along with a career wipe-out he attributes to health. 

And for him, that's true -- he might have leapt across the economic chasm of 2008 because he's that good a writer, but he got floored by a massive health problem while the rest of the world shattered.

As he came out of that long, dark tunnel a year later, he investigated self-publishing on Kindle -- but that route is chancy at best and he had a family to support.

Meanwhile, Kickstarter began to attract enough attention that his friends were telling him about it.  And in 2011, he launched into a Kickstarter project.

Now, go read how he researched Kickstarter.  There are a lot of "crowd-sourcing" websites operating now.  It's a trend.  But research - ah, that doesn't change.  Learn to do it for one kind of thing, and you know how to do it for everything, with only a few quirks to learn for each application.

Now I'm not expecting you to want to use a crowd-sourcing website for your Romance novel. 

Crowdsourcing works best for you if you already have a following or an "in" with a connected market, or a ready-made crowd to use as a source. 

But things like Google+ Communities are making crowds which will become "sources" -- imagine the world that capital raised this way will create.

It will be a different world than we've lived in -- some of the problems created by Big Business raising capital on Wall Street will go away, but other problems will be generated that we have to imagine and write about in Science Fiction Romance.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Audiobook, e-book and other formats


Here's a little success story for the business model and story-structure crafting posts I've been showing you and the source material behind my narrative about the shifts in the publishing industry and in audiences. 

I now have books in new paper, e-book (multi-format, but I'm giving you links to Kindle), and now audiobook, too, along with whole new story/plotlines designed for a videogame. 

For most of very recent history, all writers have been self-employed or employed to do "work for hire" (i.e. paid a level salary to write words they subsequently do not own the copyright on.)

Prior to that writers, as most all artists, worked under the patronage system, and didn't actually own what they produced.  Rich people competed to own the most popular of them. 

Prior to that writers worked mostly anonymously -- bards singing epic songs glamorizing and immortalizing actual newsworthy historic events.

Today, even writers who own their copyrights and license them to publishers end up doing a lot of their own publicity.  But sometimes things just happen. 

"Just happen" seems to be the major theme of the epic tale of the Sime~Gen Universe novels in the last few years.

A few years ago, Wildside Press came to Jean Lorrah and me asking for reprint rights to our backlist.  Wildside picked up the entire Sime~Gen series that Jean and I collaborate on and own together. 

We had barely finished doing the formatting work on all 12 extant Sime~Gen novels than a fellow who knew Jean's work via a connection to her University job as a Professor of English came to us wanting game rights to her novels.  We didn't have exactly what he wanted, but pointed him to some of the unpublished Sime~Gen work posted online, and it hinted at what he wanted.

For the last 7 months or so, we've been working to create the Sime~Gen galactic civilization, and meanwhile the novels have begun to appear in audiobook from audible.com which is a handy format many of his game development  crew prefer -- because it's hands-and-eyes free and allows for multitasking. 

Amazon's cross indexing is a mess, what with all the used copies for sale (cheap), so for reference, I'm going to list the Sime~Gen novels in publication order with links to the various formats of the new editions. 

You don't need to read them before playing the game because the game will include whatever background you would want to play in this universe's interstellar era. 

The novels were published in an order that has little to do with the chronology of history in the Sime~Gen universe.  For that chronology consult:

http://simegen.com/CHRONO1.html

Sime~Gen Universe Novels:

House of Zeor.

    Wildside Press, Borgo, 2011, paperback, e-book

    Audible.com, 2012

New Paperback:


Kindle:


Audible.com
http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B007JX14EM

Unto Zeor, Forever (won the Galaxy Award)

        Wildside Press, Borgo, paperback, e-book 2011

          audible.com, 2012

New Paperback:



Kindle:



audible.com
http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B00AHI6XI8

First Channel, by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg.

        Wildside Press, 2011, paperback, e-book

New Paperback:



Kindle:


audible.com (?)


Mahogany Trinrose.

       Wildside Press, 2011, paperback, and e-book

New Paperback:


Kindle:


audible.com (?)


Channel's Destiny, by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg.

        Wildside Press, 2011 paperback, e-book

New Paperback:



Kindle:


audible.com (?)
    
RenSime,

   Wildside Press, Borgo, 2011 paperback, e-book

    audible.com, 2012

New Paperback:


Kindle:


audible.com  
 http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B00AKNDHNE

Zelerod's Doom by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah

    Wildside Press, Borgo, 2011, paperback, e-book

 New Paperback


Kindle:


audible.com (?)


Ambrov Keon by Jean Lorrah (in Lichtenberg's series but not a collaboration)

        Wildside Press, Borgo, 2011, paperback, e-book

New Paperback:


Kindle:


audible.com (?)

To Kiss Or To Kill  Sime~Gen Book 11 by Jean Lorrah,

      Wildside Press, Borgo, 2011, paperback, e-book

       audible.com, 2012

 New Paperback:


Kindle:


audible.com
http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B00AJWTWQC

The Story Untold and other Sime~Gen stories, Sime~Gen Book 10 by Jean Lorrah,

      Wildside Press 2010, paperback, e-book

      audible.com, 2012

New paperback - printed 2-sided, with PERSONAL RECOGNIZANCE on the flip side of THE STORY UNTOLD:




Kindle: (just The Story Untold)


audible.com (just The Story Untold)
http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B00AI1DY6S

Personal Recognizance Sime~Gen Book 9, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg,

      Wildside Press, Borgo, 2010, paperback, e-book

      audible.com, 2012

New Paperback


Kindle: (just Personal Recognizance)


audible.com (just Personal Recognizance)
http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B007L5CRQW


The Farris Channel Sime~Gen Book 12 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

      Wildside Press, Borgo, 2012, paperback, e-book               

New Paperback:


Kindle:


audible.com (?)

And just last week, one of the rarest and most expensive of the non-Sime~Gen Novels (originally a St. Martin's Hardcover, then a BenBella trade paperback) came out in ebook, Dreamspy.



Each of these novels, and a long bibliography of shorter works, has a long, involved story behind it, many adventures, many visits to various publishers and editorial offices, to book distributors and distribution warehouses, to bookstores and conventions.  And it's still going on, as publishers shift and change and morph and re-combine their operations and work with me in different ways.  I intend to transmit everything I've learned as things change.
              
There's a more complete bibliography with early editions and foreign editions listed at
http://www.simegen.com/bios/jlbio.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com