E-Books and Libraries

Cory Doctorow's latest LOCUS column:

Peace in Our Time

The "peace" in the title refers to the "e-book wars" that pit authors, publishers, and libraries against each other. Giant online booksellers such as Amazon come into the equation, too. I'm not sure I understand the practical details of Doctorow's plan for authors to retail their own books, but I definitely agree (judging from the numbers cited in this article) that publishers are currently ripping off libraries with exorbitant e-book prices. And I didn't know that the Overdrive system was imposed on libraries by publishers.

My personal experience of borrowing an e-book from our local library through Overdrive involved a monumental tome, PAUL AND THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD, by N. T. Wright, my favorite New Testament scholar. Like most academic-level publications, the book is priced beyond the usual budget of a casual reader. To read it for free from the library, I had a long wait because our county system owns only one "copy" of this volume. Now I know the probable reason for this bottleneck—the library's cost of "buying" from the publisher the right to lend multiple "copies."

Doctorow's article contains lots of information new to me. Interesting discussion even if you don't completely agree with his proposals.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

The Death of the Midlist

A blog by horror author Brian Keene offering the most thorough explanation I've seen lately about the root causes of the death of the midlist:

How the Mid-List Died

In brief, he blames "corporate stupidity" and changes in publishing. His overview gives an interesting brief history of those changes. He doesn't mention one other source of the problem, alterations in tax laws that made it more expensive for publishers to store large inventories of backlist books.

He discusses the importance of an author's having books available through online sales, independent bookstores, and what's left of the nationwide chains (if possible). That said, he pessimistically expects Barnes and Noble and Books-a-Million eventually to go extinct as Borders and Waldenbooks did.

Here's Keene's follow-up essay on the practical aspects of diversifying as an author:

Making a Living in a Post-Mid-List World

Again he emphasizes the need to avoid putting all one's creative eggs in the same publishing basket. No longer can a non-bestseller expect to earn a living wage by writing for one or two publishers, as Keene did at the beginning of his career.

He mentions that he started getting published twenty years ago; from this bit of data, I infer that he's younger than I am. When my first book was published (when dinosaurs roamed the Earth), I broke into the mass-market paperback realm by selling an anthology of vampire stories, CURSE OF THE UNDEAD (you can find cheap used copies on Amazon), to Fawcett. In my early twenties, with no professional publication or editing track record whatever, I got a contract to edit an anthology—a type of book nowadays considered a very hard sell—for a major genre publisher. Not only that, I received an advance (in 1970 dollars) almost half as large as the one Harlequin paid me (in 2005 dollars) for my only mass-market novel, vampire romance EMBRACING DARKNESS (still available as an e-book).

Verily, the past is a different country.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Making a Living (or Not) as a Writer

The current issue of CEMETERY DANCE includes an interview with Ray Garton. I retro-reviewed one of his best-known novels, LIVE GIRLS, on VampChix in March:

Live Girls

Garton is a pretty big name in the horror midlist, a prolific, highly respected author. I was mildly shocked to read in the interview that he wants to get back into tie-in writing, not only because he enjoyed it, but because he "need[s] the work." He also commented that he has been increasing his short-story production lately to pay medical bills.

Another vampire author, one of my favorites, with a popular series that ran for a long time and an avidly loyal readership, posts frequently on Facebook about her financial troubles. She supplements her writing income with fannish-themed craft sales to make ends meet.

Inference from these two examples (and many others could doubtless be cited): Popularity as an author doesn't necessarily translate into financial security. Once the high-selling books recede into the backlist, the author can't live on their royalties. Sure, I knew this fact, but it's disheartening to notice fresh evidence of it.

I'm not sure whether to take some consolation (for my own modest sales record) in realizing even authors I consider successful can't live on their writing income or to feel discouraged over the state of the market. More the latter than the former, I think. It would be much nicer to see people whose work I admire receiving the deserved fruits of their creativity.

Author Brenda Hiatt compiles information about typical earnings for book-length fiction on her "Show Me the Money" site. Here's the page for traditional publishers (large and small, "tree" and electronic), updated to about a year ago:

Show Me the Money

The "median" and "range" earn-out figures are very enlightening and make it clear why most authors can't survive financially on writing alone.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Converting Your Business Model to Self-Publishing Guest Post by Jaleta Clegg

Converting Your Business Model to Self-Publishing Guest Post by Jaleta Clegg

But first a note by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Making the Leap from publishing through a publisher to self-publishing is a lot harder than simply starting out aiming to self-publish.

When I started out, I thought I'd enjoy publishing a fanzine.  I tried it -- nope.  As Dr. McCoy would have said, "I'm a writer not a publisher."

Today, those who have multiple talents from cover design to marketing, and from fiction writing to copy-writing, are spending their young years honing all these skills and building the social-network following to make them pay off.

All of this broad-ranging talent development will eventually change the world drastically, a change I look forward to eagerly.  This is the way things started out, long before the fixed-type printing press, and only later became so complex a writer couldn't do it all alone.

Today, there are tools, websites, indie-editors, indie-book designers, indie-publicists, and so on combining skills to circumvent the large Internationally Owned publishing houses.

Bookstores are morphing as fast as they can, looking for a way around the collapsing marketing chains.  Distributors and warehousing, trucking and delivery services are all going -- "printing" is a thing of the past, as most of the operations are now computerized, and printing presses consist of huge buildings streaming tons and tons of paper through to get printed.

Well, then there's CREATE SPACE and many other Print On Demand operations that can make paper books to order, rather than warehousing them.  Most bookstores can't afford to carry POD books -- the margins just don't work with traditional distribution discounting.

But Amazon can and does make a profit on POD.  It's all in the business model.

Many writers off the New York Times Bestseller list, in Romance, Mystery, Western, Historical, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and general fiction, have also abandoned the big publishers and are releasing their own backlists, sometimes along with new novels in their series, self-publishing through smashwords and other outlets.  You'll find me on that organization's website, too, in the dropdown of authors listed.

They organized to help them promote their novels -- you can find their SALE ITEMS listed on this page:
http://www.backlistebooks.com/

There is a seething ferment of change coming at us out of the FANFIC communities, and we'll talk more about that in December or maybe January. 

Meanwhile, listen here to a writer who has been working with a small press publisher, and finally had her career swerve into the self-publishing Indie business model despite all her best intentions. 

-----------GUEST POST BY JALETA CLEGG--------

Hi, I'm Jaleta Clegg and I'm a self-published author now. (Check out my site at http://www.jaletac.com)

I never wanted to be a self-published author. I have a lot of author friends who love it and wouldn't have it any other way. I respect them. But I never wanted to be one of them. I published my first three books and lots of short stories through small presses. Sure, there were shortcomings and things that weren't as I'd envisioned when I set out to publish. But I was happy, satisfied with the choice I'd made.

Then it happened. My current publisher called me up. "Your books are great. Everyone loves them. They get great reviews. But no one's buying them. We're going to have to let the rest of the series go."It was a business decision, one I support. But not one I wanted to live with. After spending a week agonizing over my options, I took a deep breath and dove head-first into self-publishing. I'd dabbled before with some short stories, got deeper with two short story collections last June, but this was over-my-head jump-in-the-deep-end-and-hope-I-can-swim.

I won't lie and tell you self-publishing is all roses and loafing around on sofas watching TV and eating chocolate. It's a business. And sometimes you have to make hard choices. You have to do paperwork. You have to be your own cheerleader. You have to be your own boss. That's hard work.

An author writes, right? Yes. A publisher edits, does cover design and interior layout, writes cover blurbs and advertising blurbs, makes contacts for marketing, and gets the book out where people can find it and buy it. They also deal with taxes and business licensing and a myriad other business things. If you're about to jump into self-publishing, stop and ask yourself this question, "Do I really want to run a business and be my own boss?" If you thought meeting a publisher's deadline was difficult and put the pressure on, it's a thousand times worse when you're the boss. If you aren't self-motivated, don't jump onto the self-publishing bandwagon. You're the one who will have to poke and prod yourself into getting the edits done on time. You're the one who has to run naked in public, I mean make contacts for advertising and marketing your book. (Can you tell this is one I hate more than the others?) You're the one who will have to track income and sales and figure out taxes. It will eat your life if you let it. It isn't just about writing a great story when you self-publish, it's about taking care of all the details that publishers get paid to deal with.

Don't assume you can do it all yourself, either. I'm blind as a bat to many of my writing faults. I need a good editor to help my books shine. I haven't found one I can afford on my own yet, so I'm trusting my beta readers more than I should. That's another myth people think about self-publishing: It won't cost me anything to get this out there. That's true if you don't really care about editing it or creating a really nice cover. Don't do it yourself unless you're sure you have the skills and expertise to pull it off professionally. That said, there are many websites popping up that cater to the self-published author. The cover for Kumadai Run is directly from http://www.selfpubbookcovers.com/ and it's beautiful. It also cost me a small chunk of change. It was worth it, in my opinion. I've done cover design before and it's very hard. It takes hours to get those photos and fonts just right. I'm happy to pay someone else to make it for me.

It shouldn't cost you a fortune to get your book out, though. A few hundred dollars at most, all of which you can write off as a business expense, provided you've set up a business for your publishing. You haven't? Watch out for the government, then.

Would I go back to the publisher? Probably yes, mostly because it simplifies my life. Maybe I just haven't been bitten hard enough by the self-publishing bug. Maybe I really don't mind turning over control to someone else so I can focus on writing more books and taking care of my family.

But that's out of the picture now. What publisher would want books 4-11 of a space opera series, especially when the first three haven't sold well? No one. I could publish them myself or let the series fade and die unfinished. I couldn't disappoint the few rabid fans I've got, so I bit the bullet and put book 4 out there with the rest to follow.

So anyone want to read a fun space opera adventure series with a strong female lead character and a whole cast of sometimes kooky characters? The Fall of the Altairan Empire series is getting good reviews, especially from people who loved the campy golden age pulp sci-fi stories of the 50's and those who just enjoy a good fun beach read with plenty of action. Check out the books at http://www.altairanempire.com

Or look for my short stories at http://www.jaletac.com. They range from science fiction adventure stories that tie in to the series,  to fantasy, to silly horror, to romance, and even a couple of weird westerns.And if anyone wants to trade books for website design, I could really use a website designer's help!
You can find me on Twitter as @Jaleta_Clegg or on Facebook as Jaleta Clegg's Altairan Empire series.

Or look me up on Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Jaleta-Clegg/e/B0036WC0FC

Good resources I've found for self-published authors:
Covers - http://www.selfpubbookcovers.com/

Smashwords for ebooks - https://www.smashwords.com/
Createspace for paperbacks -
https://www.createspace.com/

Kindle Direct Publishing for Kindle ebooks - http://kdp.amazon.com/

Supportive sites for indie authors:
Bestsellerbound - a wonderful community and a great resource.

Need help? Just ask. http://quietfurybooks.com/messageboard/index.php
Facebook has many many groups including the Science Fiction Romance Brigade and Author's Think Tank
BroadUniverse - supporting women authors of science fiction, fantasy, and horror - http://broaduniverse.org/

---------END GUEST POST BY JALETA CLEGG--------------------

All right, Jaleta Clegg has pointed you at a variety of resources.

Remember, no publisher DOES IT ALL THEMSELVES. 

The business model of publisher is that the publisher does almost nothing and makes a big profit doing it.  They out-source the specialty tasks, and hire "editors" to choose books that will sell well via the distribution channels the publisher has established.


Each publisher's imprint, and each line within a publishing house, is designed so that all the books are "the same but different" -- everything with a particular logo on it is designed to appeal to a specific market.  All publishers actually do is define markets, set up mechanisms for reaching those markets, and then feed product into the pipeline to those markets.

All editors do is conform the writer's product to the publisher's delivery channel's size and shape so it'll get to the reader the publisher targets (not the reader the writer targets; the reader the publisher targets.  You will sell well if your writing conforms to your publisher's delivery channel.)

If you are going to be your own publisher, you should be thinking in terms of the target market you need, how to reach that market, and where to get the individual Talents you need to package your merchandise to appeal to that market.  That is what publishers do - they package and deliver a uniform product. 

The more uniform the product, the more regular the delivery of it, the bigger the publisher's profit.  It's that simple.  Be your own publisher; pocket the publisher's share of what your book can earn. 

Think of this in two ways while researching: 
A) You are a writer looking at your publishing options;
B) You are a character in a novel about having to look at your publishing options.

Either way, you will learn a lot by clicking links in this post.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg

Should You Make Up A Pen Name - Part II

Last week we looked at Sarah A. Hoyt and her multitude of bylines in various genres, a list that's still growing and not causing her much problem yet.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/should-you-make-up-pen-name-part-i.html

This week, I have a note from a member of Backlist eBooks (http://backlistebooks.com  which has an Amazon store which lists most of the members' titles http://astore.amazon.com/backlebook-20 ), Patricia Rosemoore, who is pondering a career with multiple bylines woven through a collaboration, a career that's still growing and branching out.

If you're just starting out in publishing, even if you are tossing out one or two trivial projects into the ebook market to make your bones, you really should ponder Patricia Rosemoore's point of view, make it your own, see what your career will look like in retrospect, before you type in a byline under the title of your first work.

Even if you've already started publishing, it might not be too late to re-think your overall business branding strategy for the body of work you intend to create and the audience you expect will discover that body of work amidst the flood of ebooks.

Patricia Rosemoor writes Dangerous Love; Kindle ebook "reprints": available from Amazon -- The McKenna Legacy:SEE ME IN YOUR DREAMS, TELL ME NO LIES, TOUCH ME IN THE DARK; from Harlequin Intrigue: BRAZEN; http://PatriciaRosemoor.com

-------QUOTE--------
My former writing partner and I are going to try to get rights back from Harper and Dell and maybe even from Silhouette. We wrote as Roslynn Patrick and Roslynn Griffith for Harper, Lynn Patrick for Dell (and for HQ) and Jeanne Rose for Silhouette. And I write as Patricia Rosemoor.

Here's my question--how would any of you who have multiple identities handle the backlist?

Should we pick one of the pseudonyms or use the originals? The only problem with using one pseudonym is that the books aren't all alike. Both Dell and HQ were Lynn Patrick -- some humor with our romance, a few with light suspense. But Silhouette Shadows were the precursor to Nocturne and the Harpers are really dark RS, three of the five being paranormal.

Whatever we choose to do, I'll probably want the cover to read something like (in small print) Patricia Rosemoor and Linda Sweeney writing as (and in big print) selected pseudonym. The idea is that since I have 60 some books as Patricia Rosemoor, and since I'm already backlisting a few Patricia Rosemoor books, it would probably generate more sales that way. For example if someone looks up Rosemoor on Amazon, they'll get those other pseudonyms.

Or is that too weird? What is anyone else doing?

Thanks,
Patricia

---END QUOTE---

So far I haven't seen more in depth discussion of this problem with definitive answers.

The problem is that most widely published writers have this problem in one form or another.

As discussed last week, bylines are often created at request or demand of Agents and/or Editors -- i.e. of marketers, not readers or writers.

And those bylines were created by Agents and Editors who never planned for the ebook world, or the self-republishing world, or Amazon's computers with tags, customer reviews, and so on.

How can you plan for what will be twenty years from now? 

What will change and what will stay the same?

The only answer I have so far is that you can't.

My sometime collaborator on my Sime~Gen Universe novels didn't plan for Amazon, but their system is working out splendidly for us.

We put both our bylines on each of our collaborations, but followed the academic convention and put the originating author first.  That is, when I first-drafted a novel that Jean collaborated on, my name came first.  When she first drafted a novel that I collaborated on, her name came first.  When we wrote independently in Sime~Gen, the byline was the single name.

The result drove bookstores totally nuts (the more they computerized, the nuttier it got), and we sold really well only at the science fiction and mystery specialty stories where the owner and clerks actually read the novels and recommended them to specific customers.  We gathered a lot of librarians, teachers, bookstore managers and owners who became fans.  .

Oddly, Amazon's method is now working wondrously well in just the way the indie bookstores did, recommending to those who would otherwise miss a title because of the odd bylines.

Jean Lorrah wrote a number of Star Trek novels for Pocket (which are all now in ebook, too) plus a series called Savage Empire, also being reissued by Wildside Press in ebook and paper.

I have a number of other titles, my Vampire Romances from St. Martin's Press, and others with complicated publishing histories including translations.  And now, two collections of my short stories have been issued, Through The Moon Gate and Science Is Magic Spelled Backwards.  

But the publisher, Wildside Press's Borgo imprint, is re-issuing the Sime~Gen novels in order of publication not in internal chronology order because numbered series in order of publication now sell better as ebooks!  (they have the computer evidence to prove it!)

So here's how they bill the Sime~Gen Universe on the inside cover listing:

THE SIME~GEN SERIES from The Borgo Press
House of Zeor, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#1)
Unto Zeor, Forever, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#2)
First Channel, by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#3)
Mahogany Trinrose, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#4)
Channel’s Destiny, by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#5)
RenSime, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#6)
Ambrov Keon, by Jean Lorrah (#7)
Zelerod’s Doom, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah (#8)

AND THEN NEW ONES!

Personal Recognizance, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#9)
The Story Untold and Other Stories, by Jean Lorrah (#10)
To Kiss or to Kill, by Jean Lorrah (#11)
The Farris Channel, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#12)

Now, as most readers here know, Sime~Gen is not a "series" but a Universe.

It covers several thousand years of future-history, and only a few of the books revisit a given character's life.  Most are set in different eras, to tell the story of the Universe through the intensely personal growth experiences of a given individual who lives in that time.

The Universe postulates (invisibly to the reader) that reincarnation is real, so many of the characters in later books are reincarnations of previous characters, Souls that have learned hard lessons in previous lives and now are free to go on to new lessons (harder ones).

The internal chronology is cast onto what we call the Unity Calendar, which actually has a Year Zero:
------------

- 533 Unity --First Channel by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg
- 518 Unity – Channel’s Destiny by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg
- 468 Unity – The Farris Channel by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
- 20 Unity – Ambrov Keon by Jean Lorrah
- 15 Unity – House of Zeor by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
0 Unity Calendar - Zelerod’s Doom by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah
1 Unity - To Kiss Or To Kill by Jean Lorrah
1 Unity - The Story Untold And Other Sime~Gen Stories by Jean Lorrah
132 Unity – Unto Zeor, Forever by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
152 Unity – Mahogany Trinrose by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
224 Unity – “Operation High Time” by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
232 Unity – RenSime by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
245 Unity – Personal Recognizance by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
---------------

So why am I belaboring this chronology issue in a blog about creating a pen name?

Because it all goes together, and needs to be considered if you're starting a series.

What's selling now, really well, is Series that are published in the internal chronological order.  I've reviewed a large number of those.  It's probably connected to the shift from the "anthology" TV series which had to be viewable in any order because of technical broadcast reasons, to the "story arc" TV series which is possible because of DVD's, On Demand, and Tivo.

But will it always be that way?  Can the computerization of databases and google algorhytms make some other method work better for readers?

The Pen Name issue is all about letting the reader find what the reader wants at that particular moment.  Kindle allows instant gratification by mail-order! 

One of the methods we're using to help readers figure out buying Sime~Gen in Kindle and/or paper is the Amazon store approach. 

We are making a store with the NEW Sime~Gen novels, along with a page for other titles by Jean Lorrah and by me. 

Here's the URL:

http://astore.amazon.com/simegen-20 

Consider - will you need an Amazon store? (or a "store" from some other outfit, like B&N?) or all of the above?  What will you call it?

We're trying to keep our store as simple as possible, with more of the stories behind the various covers and editions explicated on the SimeGen Group on facebook.

The Amazon Store is a tool nobody would ever have predicted twenty years prior to its appearance. 

What tools will you have to market your body of work?  What flexibility can you build into your concept that will make that tool easy and natural to use?

Does byline matter? Does sub-title matter? Does order of publication matter? Does interval between new books matter? (i.e. should you write 10 novels before letting #1 come out?)

What is the best way to leverage today's marketing tools? 

Here's a blog by a writer that I was pointed to by @victoriastrauss on twitter:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2011/best-practices-for-amazon-ebook-sales/

That's today's Amazon - and if you read that blog, you'll see how "marketing; branding; byline" all fit into it.

So will tailoring your fiction to that method limit what you can do with tomorrow's tools?

How will social networking change the underlying principles of marketing and branding?  And what comes after social networking?

What should you be preparing for?

Oh, we have a lot of work to do on this blog!  And as we work, we may stumble on the key to that whole genre-prestige issue. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Should You Make Up A Pen Name? Part I

Last week we talked more about changes in publishing, and how long established, famous writers are retrieving the rights to their own novels from the big publishers and issuing them as ebooks on their own.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/doranna-durgin-on-changes-in-publishing.html
The organization that Duranna Durgin (oh, you gotta read her books) founded is Backlist Ebooks, just for writers trying to learn the ropes of self-publishing.  The dues are steep but worth it, as with any organization of professionals. 

Yes, famous writers with big followings are self-publishing!

And in fact, some writers just now breaking into print are having a problem selling titles they post themselves, or titles published via indie or e-book-only publishers because the big publishers are now flooding the market with the newest books by big names, while the big names are posting their own backlist titles.

It's sometimes hard to tell the difference when shopping an ebook catalogue, so various entrepreneurs have launched various projects to re-engineer the fiction delivery system.  Everything is changing so fast that new writers -- and even long established writers -- need to think carefully before wading into the chaos.

Not all members of Backlist eBooks are using Kindle. Some just post their novels on their own website. Some distribute to a lot of formats through smashwords, and hit Kindle that way.

Doing all this self-publishing work requires climbing a very steep learning curve, and takes a lot of time away from producing actual new novels.

Along with covers, and ISBN numbers, and formatting for this-and-that system, and other such mysteries, comes the decision of whether to republish a novel under the same byline it was originally published under.

Many writers have several bylines, or pen names, as they were called in the days of pens.

How does that happen? If you've never published anything yet, should you create a bunch of bylines?  Do you have to do it? Should you stop doing it?

The name you put under the Title of your work is a "brand" -- as marketers are teaching writers to call it these days. Writers have to be branded as well as genre'd!

For example, my Agent decided I needed a different byline for my Military Science Fiction novels just when he read them. He decided to market them with the challenge to the editor, figure out who wrote this from the style. The editor who bought the two couldn't figure it, then decided I should pick a male byline for them.

They are Hero and Border Dispute, which came out as Ace Mass Market novels at the peak of the military SF boom under the byline Daniel R. Kerns (before Daniel Kerns made a name for himself - that Daniel is not me).

So because of the similar and confusing byline issue, when I reissued the two novels as an omnibus Kindle edition, I put my own byline on them even though they're not the usual science fiction romance I write. They are relationship driven, human/alien stories. The problem that drives the relationship is an interstellar war -- but not against an "enemy." That's the SF twist that's so Lichtenberg -- rethink the entire meaning of "war" and "action."  Find them here.

Hero & Border Dispute

So that's an example of a science fiction byline bleeding over into a sub-genre, military science fiction. Many wouldn't consider military science fiction a "sub" genre at all since science fiction started as a male-action sub-genre. Do you need a new byline for a sub-genre?

Can one byline work over many genres, and for fiction and non-fiction as well -- for non-fiction in different areas (such as Biography vs. say, Tarot)?

This is an especially sensitive question for writers of SFR, Science Fiction Romance or PNR, Paranormal Romance, vs. plain contemporary Romance, vs. Historical Romance.

My main topic on this blog has been how to raise the level of respect for the various Romance Genres in the minds of the general public -- even people who don't like or read Romance should view the genre as a high precision, demanding genre that arouses the thirst for education in a wide variety of highly regarded professions.  Today, though, a byline known in the Romance genres carries a stigma that is not honorable.  So should you use your own legal name?  Or make up a name for your byline? 

Publishers have a "legacy wisdom" from the days of printing presses, that insists one byline famous for Romance simply will not sell to Mystery readers. A byline famous for Mystery might sell to Science Fiction (Asimov comes to mind as the exception that proves all these rules) but a byline famous for Science Fiction will never, ever make it in Westerns or Romance.

The more famous your byline in one area, the more resistant publishers are to using it in another.

Take Nora Roberts for a big example of how that legacy wisdom is not applicable any more.

She wanted to write a series of sort-of-SF-Romance novels set almost in the future, called the IN DEATH series (I really like that series a lot!) So the publisher and/or Agent, or someone, decided she needed to avoid sullying her prominent Nora Roberts brand name with that icky science-fiction crap.

I don't know if it was her idea or theirs, but they put the J. D. Robb byline on the In Death Series and hid the Nora Roberts attribution from most readers.

IN DEATH didn't sell well at all, even though it was Nora Roberts style and made it into most libraries in paperback.

That's an object lesson in marketing. Content doesn't matter to sales. Brand does.

So after a few In Death novels, they "came out of the closet" (rumors abounded online about "who" J. D. Robb really was) and put the Nora Roberts byline on the front covers.

And they sold.  Are still selling, big time.

Isn't that interesting? Against all legacy wisdom of publishers, science fiction romance sold to an enthusiastic Romance readership -- not so much at all to the science fiction readers, and not to the fantasy readership.

Something changed, and I think it's an important something.

Now, I have to be a nasty critic here and state that the IN DEATH series is really crummy science fiction, if you judge it as SF. (I don't, so I actually like those novels!)

It's plain vanilla Nora Roberts romance, hitting the middle of the Romance market - nothing much to talk about except "I keep buying these things and I don't know why."

So is IN DEATH different enough to warrant another byline? Apparently not. And that was in 2004. Note IN DEATH #1 is now on Kindle, and has over 200 reviews on Amazon.

Here's Treachery in Death

Note the high price on the Kindle edition whereas many members of Backlist eBooks are posting their own novels for $2.99 (and many write as well or better than Nora Roberts in my not-so-humble opinion)..

Byline and branding is all marketing, not supply and demand. After all, ebooks come with unlimited supply. Stores don't run out of copies!

Now, about the byline problem.

Which brings us back to the stigma problem.

I think the major publishers have the computerized sales results to substantiate their insistence on separate bylines for separate genres, but especially for authors who sully their brand with SCIENCE FICTION.

So I'm going to talk about a friend of mine, Sarah A. Hoyt -- we're friends on facebook. She's been sending me review copies of some of her books for a while now. Her publishers don't understand why a reviewer for a New Age Magazine (me) would rave about murder mysteries, steampunk, historicals, etc etc. But I can find something esoteric in anything because the reality behind the art is all about Love Conquers All.

I reviewed some historical mysteries Sarah A. Hoyt wrote under a different byline Sarah D’Almeida about the Musketeers:

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2009/

and in 2010
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2010/

Death of a Musketeer by Sarah D’Almeida, Berkley Prime Crime Mystery, 2006

Dying By The Sword by Sarah D’Almeida, Berkeley Prime Crime Mystery, 2008

There are a couple more and Sarah expects to get them out as ebooks with new ones in that series. (see the problem? Sarah who?)

Here's a note from her about bylines:
----------
The mysteries are an open pen name. Also, the first musketeer's mystery has been re-released with a small press: http://nakedreader.com/

Amazon it should have this version up by now. If it does well, I will finish novel #6, The Musketeer's Confessor. I've just delivered A Fatal Stain (the third of the refinishing ones.) I'm now working on Darkship Renegade, which apparently will have a "sister book" that takes place on Earth with different characters. (I didn't know this. The character mugged me one fine morning... :/ so now I have to write him.)
-----

That's how writers keep up with each other's work -- notes on facebook.

And then there's a series of well, Steampunk-ish novels Sarah did that I loved -- more or less fantasy, maybe.

Heart of Light is one of the titles.

Here's a whole list of Hoyt titles:

Sarah A. Hoyt

I've just read DARKSHIP THIEVES by Sarah A. Hoyt, and it's REALLY GOOD SF-Romance in the Linnea Sinclair tradition -- a lot of running around in space ships and space stations, but no non-humans. This one is a break-off human colony with genetic modification issues. And a really good star-crossed lovers story.

FULL DISCLOSURE - you all know I'm a reviewer, and I get free copies. I don't review everything sent to me, only 5-star worthy items.

However, there's a bit of a brag on this one - there's a quote from me on the back cover of DARKSHIP THIEVES.

(Totally aside, in Amber Benson's new Ace Fantasy, Serpent's Storm (a Calliope Reaper-Jones novel), there's a quote from me on the front-inside-page with many other reviewer quotes, but that one only credits The Monthly Aspectarian, the magazine I review for. -- the point being reviewing is not an "objective" business.  You can get my attention by quoting me and by giving me freebies. As far as I know Amber Benson doesn't have any other bylines. This is the actress/director/writer Amber Benson, a brand name in itself.

As Sarah A. Hoyt says above, she's working on a sequel for DARKSHIP, and that too would be for Baen.

Oh, and I'm not done with Sara yet. Hold your hat.

She's ALSO a mystery writer with byline Elise Hyatt!!! That's the reference to "refinishing" above. (and yes, this, too is great stuff you ought to read, and nevermind the genre label).

Elise Hyatt publishes with Berkley Prime Crime mass market paperback, two titles I've seen so far,

Dipped, Stripped and Dead,

and

French Polished Murder

The series, subtitled A DARING FINDS MYSTERY is contemporary setting, ho-hum yawn normality -- but the lead character is a woman who's divorced and raising a boy from her first marriage as she gets involved with a new boyfriend.

I think these 2 books made me a fan of "Cozy Mystery" -- there's nothing hard-edged, and a lot of character depth. The Relationships while dramatically charged, are more "normal" than I've been seeing lately.

Here's the thing - DARING FINDS is science fiction in disguise.

Why? Because this lead character, Candyce Dare, is living on subsistence income from refinishing furniture and selling it on the "antique" market.  Her attitude is pure SF-Hero stuff.

Trust me, there's more than one science involved in her body of knowledge. It was a hobby she cultivated while married, and now is making a living from it, learning the hard way, gaining associates in this industry, and showering us with the science of it.  This is the oldest, classic SF motif of a young person without format education in a subject becoming an expert with "outside the box" thinking. 

Without the extraordinary skill at science fiction worldbuilding and information feed (topics I've discussed at length in these blogs -- you can find most of my blog entries on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com by searching for the tag Tuesday), these Elise Hyatt mysteries would be incredibly boring. Instead, DARING FINDS is a series with a luscious hook, and page-turning fascination, sizzling romance angle, and lots to learn.

The DARING FINDS mysteries is the very best science fiction romance with a mystery plot. Both books satisfy on every level.

OK, you don't get to the HEA because it's a series, but you know you will get there. The writer's hand is so firm and disciplined, it's like riding with a supremely accomplished rally driver.

Good grief, by now you're so confused you don't know which writer I'm talking about.

See?

Brand. Byline. Stigma. 

Readers want to grab hold of a SYMBOL and know that anything sold under that symbol delivers what the other things under that symbol deliver.  And that's the re-engineering of the fiction delivery system that Backlist eBooks is participating in.  How can a reader navigate this avalanche of ebooks and find just what they want when they want it? 

Publishers want to know which readership to spend money promoting a byline to -- mystery, SF, Fantasy, historical -- marketers see these as separate readerships. My contention is that this was true, but is less true with every passing year.

So here we have Sarah A. Hoyt, Sarah D’Almeida (also from Berkley Prime Crime, notice?) and Elise Hyatt, and there are other bylines of this author.

On the Elise Hyatt byline, she says:
-----------
I wanted to use Alice (my name pre-citizenship was spelled Alice, pronounced Elise, hence Elise Hyatt for Daring Finds, because I will answer when called that.) Alice Rye... because they asked for "white bread" -- I'm a horrible woman. Mind you my pre citizenship name was Alice Maria da Silva Marques De Almeida, (my grandfather spelled it D'Almeida) which means there is A LOT there to use. But... no. It had to be "white bread." Ugh.
-----------

But - (hold your head and groan) - she's starting yet another byline! Here's what she says about the new one:

----------
I've also just sold (but not announced yet) a series under Sarah Marques which also has the musketeers but very different musketeers than the mysteries (like alternate versions of them. Yes, it's weird to have both in my head, but no, it's not confusing) I don't have samples up, yet. The first book is called Sword And Blood.

SWORD AND BLOOD: the first in a series in which the Three Musketeers battle vampires in an alternate France where Cardinal Richelieu is one of the undead. In order to "save" France, a deal has been made to turn the churches and a good deal of the power over to the damned. Athos himself has been turned by the wife he thought he'd killed, who is in fact one of the vampires, and must fight his bloodlust while battling for his soul.

They'll come out under Sarah Marques simply because I think my Baen sf fans would choke if they picked that book up by accident. What do I mean choke? Well... it has a lot of sex. Woman-on-top (well, vampire on top) sex. Which hasn't been in my other books. Because of THAT I think it's fair to give fair warning. As it were. So I'll let people know it's mine and it's coming, but why it's under another name. THAT one was my choice. (The book also features a pagan priestess, the battle of evil having forced the good sides to unite, as it were, and forget their differences -- she's Madame Bonacieux and the religion is meticulously researched and reconstructed, not the least from the local workings I grew up with, which, while not in France, had a lot of the remains of Celtic religion [I come from a region known as Heights Of Maia -- Alto da Maia -- which was a Cultic center of the Celtic Common Wealth as well as the site of an annual bardic festival in pre and I presume early Roman times.] Although there's still humor in this book, it's quite different from the humor in the Musketeer Mysteries. One of my friends called this the "laughing in the teeth of H*ll" type of humor.

As for why I write so much? Heaven help me if I know. Rumor has it I'm compulsive. Of course, I never believe rumors.

-------------

This multi-byline author has also been discussing in public a Marlowe and Shakespear guy-on-guy thing she wants to write but doesn't think anyone would buy it. If it sells, though, that would likely need yet another byline.

Academics discussing this writer are going to have several Excedrin Headaches at once.

To help you track down some of these items, the author gives us a whole list of URLs with samples and descriptions:

----------

Here's a web page with her novels and she gives us a list of URLs with sample chapters.


----------------
http://sarahahoyt.com/novels.html

Samples of Darkship Thieves: http://darkship.sarahahoyt.com/dst-excerpt.html

Magical British Empire: http://empire.sarahahoyt.com/

Musketeer Mysteries: http://musketeers.sarahahoyt.com/

Daring Finds: http://daringfinds.sarahahoyt.com/

Shifters -- I have a third one due this year, and so far what I know for sure is that by the end of the book, Kyrie is pregnant (whee) -- http://shifters.sarahahoyt.com/

My career started with this, which now reads incredibly clumsy to me: http://shakespeare.sarahahoyt.com/

-------------

IT'S ALL GREAT STUFF YOU SHOULD READ!!!

Now, this byline musical chairs thing is a marketing ploy that the big guys have been very successful with.

This is very old traditional methodology, and there are times when it makes perfect sense if you understand byline as brand.

In fact, in the Science Fiction magazines of the 1930's and 1940's -- you'll see a table of contents with 4 or 6 bylines, and it's all by 2 people.

Pen Names are one of the oldest inventions in publishing, going back to hand-copied manuscripts.  

Are they still a relevant marketing tool today, in the world of Amazon, Kindle, Nook, B&N, etc. etc.?

If you're starting a writing career, consider carefully.

Is it cheating your reader to change the book title and re-issue it? (believe me, that's an old tradition in science fiction publishing!) Is it cheating your reader to change the byline and reissue it? Will you have to do that at some point in the distant future?

Do you want to be known for doing that?

Will you ever want to tie your body of work together under one byline?

Asimov and Heinlein, and now C. J. Cherryh and some others write "future history" -- a single universe, many novels with different genre-signatures, but hidden underneath it all, a single vision, so they all need a single byline.

Sarah A. Hoyt admits she, too, has constructed a "future history" but only because she thought it was required.

How will your fans find and follow you?

And what happens if fiction delivery system technology changes in ways you can't anticipate now?

For more considerations and dilemmas of other writers forging the way ahead, see Part II next week.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

On the Road with Questions and Answers

I've spent the past two weekends on the road (yes, it's the silly season again), teaching writing workshops and doing book signings at a community college in Leesburg FL, a library in Mount Dora FL, an art center in Naples FL and a library in New Port Richey FL. Next weekend I leave for a week-long conference in Pittsburgh (the annual and wonderful Romantic Times BOOKlovers convention).

The questions asked me by writers at these events tend to range all over the lot. Some of the questions are very on-point--you can tell this person is serious about wanting to get published because they've done their homework. Other questions seem to be just fishing--the person really has no idea of how a book goes from an idea to sitting on the shelf in a bookstore.

I'll share some from both camps here as maybe you've had similar questions too:

Q - Why don't you tell your publisher to print your books in hardcover, not just paperback?

A - I don't tell Bantam anything. I have a contract with Bantam that delineates I will provide them the content but an author is not in a position to determine or demand (at least, not unless you're sooper oodley famous) how that content is presented. The decision on cover art, format (paperback, trade paper or hard cover, audio book, ebook) and the like is done by the corporate end/marketing departments of NY publishing houses (please note I'm not talking about self-published or small press published here). Of course, my agent (or I through my agent) can make suggestions. But Bantam is not obliged to follow them.

I personally like mass market paperback as the medium. It's small, priced well, easy to carry. Durability isn't the same has hardcover but mass market ppb (paperbacks) are a lot more affordable than hardcover: $6.99 versus $25 or so.

Q - Where does your agent place advertisements for your books?

A - I'm getting the feeling lately that there's a real misunderstanding out there as to the role of a literary agent. Literary agents are not publicists. A literary agent presents your book to publishing houses in an attempt to acquire a contract with the house to publish your book. The agent then negotiates the terms of the publishing contract. A literary agent doesn't book my signings, conventions or speaking engagements. She doesn't create or place ads in the media for my books. Mine does advise me on the status of my career and my brainstorm things like workshops and conferences and signings with me. But she doesn't handle the actual placement of ads.

The publisher--in my case, Bantam--has an advertising campaign for each of the books it publishes. Bantam will create and place ads in viable publications for my books. Bantam doesn't ask me what magazines to use. I find out about the ads after the fact.

The majority of the advertising, signings and workshops are up to each author. I handle that myself. Yes, writing is a business as well as an art and a craft.

Q - What is "voice?"

A - Gee, have two weeks? I probably should do an entire blog on the subject (actually, I'm going to be teaching Point Of View and Voice at the RT con next week...). Voice is not one thing. It's probably easiest to say I know it when I see it but that's really not helpful.

Voice is the unique combination of a number of elements in the art and craft of writing that a writer employs to tell his or her story in a way that is recognizable as his or her own.

Voice includes, but is not limited to, pacing, word choice, sentence structure and characterization.

Let me give you a visual example. If I say "fast food restaurant" you likely think of a long counter, menu overhead, cash registers staffed by people in identical uniforms, seats bolted to the floor, screaming children, no tablecloths, condiments in tiny packets. Brightly lit, lots of tile and/or formica.

Those images, that style is the "voice" of a fast food restaurant. It could be McDonald's. It could be Wendy's. It could be Chick-Fil-A. I could drop you into any one of those, blindfolded, whip off your blindfold and you'd immediately recognize the kind of experience available there.

In the same sense, I could pull out a dozen pages of a JD Robb "In Death" book, hand them to you and having read those pages, you'd know--even without the bookcover--that this was a JD Robb "In Death" book. La Nora has a unique "voice."

I'm told so do I because of my word choices, characters, pacing and so on. Voice is not just one thing and it's very hard to teach voice. I can tell you what comprises it but you still have to create your own.

Q - My critique partners tear apart and change everything I write. What am I doing wrong?

A - Possibly nothing. Possibly everything. My first concern is, who are your crit partners? Do they have books on the shelves of Barnes & Noble or Waldenbooks? Have they actively studied the craft of writing? Or are they just starting out, putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard?

Jack Bickham, a noted writing guru, states in his The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, "Usually it's a mistake to seek advice from other amateurs at writers' clubs. I don't think it's a good idea to ask family or friends to read and 'criticize' your manuscript, either...for two reasons: they won't be honest; they usually don't know what they're doing anyway."

I risk being flamed here, but I agree with Jack. Unless your family member is Colby Hodge and your critique partner is Jacqueline Lichtenberg. But the amateur writer or hobby writer is not qualified to tell you if what you produced is publishable.

Please note my use of the word publishable. A book can be competently written but not publishable. (IE: you can build the most beautiful, fabulous, well constructed butter churn in the world but you'll have a tough time selling it because very few people use butter churns anymore.)

I'm not saying don't attend writers groups. They can be terrific places to make other writerly friends and listen to workshops given by published authors. But someone on the same level as you in writing may not be the most helpful crit partner.

I do encourage you to join professional author and writer groups. The reasons should be obvious but if not, ask. I also encourage you to take online writing classes presented by professional writing organizations and taught by published authors. You can find a (growing) list of those on my website under writing tips.

But even if a published author tells you your scene is wrong, remember it's still your story. Providing the error isn't one of craft (ie: spelling, grammar) then consider what the author recommends but change it only if you feel it's an improvement.

Two caveats:
1 - when I crit, I never tell a writer something is wrong unless I can tell them how to fix it. (IE: if I don't know the right way, how can I know that's the wrong way?)
2 - if your agent or editor tells you change it, do so unless you really really really have a reason for doing it the way you did. They are professionals in the business of producing publishable books.

And as always, I leave you with CJ Cherryh's superb advice: Follow no rule off a cliff.

~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

We’re At Least Boldly Trying…

Last week we engaged in a good bit of dialogue on the science fiction romance sub-genre and where it was going—given SFR's odd parentage and proclivity to bounce back and forth across the aisles of bookstores. What was really neato-peachy keen—in addition to all the terrific input here on the blog—was the fact that Robin D Owens, Patti O'Shea, Susan Grant and Gena Showalter (and yours truly) then spent this past weekend at the Divas' forum, participating in a Science Fiction & Futuristic Workshop-melee-grand free-for-all that was top notch fun and top notch feedback. You have to register for the forum (it's free) but you can read the entire weekend's worth of posts and comments. If this sub-genre's important to you, I recommend it.

Some of the things that became apparent through this energetic discussion were that the sub-genre is still hard to pin down and define; its audience is comprised of two fairly divergent groups (SF and romance); and there's still a huge interest in stories generated in SFR/RSF/Futuristics.

We also realize that SFR/RSF/Futuristics is a mouthful. "Whaddya reading in SFR/RSF/Futuristics these days?" just does not elegantly roll off the tongue. So who are we? Sifroms? Romsifs? Futroms? The latter sounds as if we can be a couch or a bed. Sciroms? Romsci? That's kind of cute: romsci as in rom-skee. Maybe too cutesy sounding.

So perhaps you can see the problem. We don't even know what to call ourselves. Other than one big honkin' good bunch 'o books.

I'm rather partial to Jacqueline Lichtenberg's intimate adventure other than it could be misheard as a section of a department store that sells negligees. Not necessarily a bad thing, that…

Continuing on this push for exposure, we have this week (poor Susan!) a week with Susan Grant at the HQN site. Woman is going to be totally forumed-out come next weekend. She may have to recruit Her Mewness to do the typing. So please do log in and go continue the buzz, and tell her Linnea says "Yarp! Yarp!":

"Author Susan Grant joins us in a discussion of her out-of- this-world heroes and her latest novel, in the Otherworldly Men series, How to Lose an Extraterrestrial in 10 Days"

http://community.eharlequin.com/webx?50@@.4a84c12e

So let's all make sure Sue really gets no sleep and go pound her with questions and comments. And let's keep the buzz going.

Hugs all, ~Linnea

http://www.linneasinclair.com/

ps: I would have added purty pictures today but Blogger is telling me it's having technical issues. I so know the feeling...

Shen and Shid, it's Tuesday!

Folks:

Excuse my Simelan invective! Translations: it doesn't translate, but these two words refer to the psychological and physical damage done by an interrupted transfer of selyn. Such language is not used in polite company.

Linnea related her traffic accident woes, and at the same time that was happening to her, "stuff" was happening to me, too.

I'm going to relate some of that story simply on the theory that there could be readers here who want to be professional writers but think that those who write professionally "have time" that others don't.

"Real life" does sit heavily on writers of all types.

My mundane story de jour is simply a rusted out hot water heater that splushed and revealed a design flaw in my house.

The builder did indeed follow code and put the gas water heater up on a platform so the ignition wouldn't set off an explosion if fumes from the cars (it's in the garage) etc. collected near the floor.

But the builder cheaped out and made that platform LOOK like a block of cement -- but it wasn't. It's a hollow cube made by some lumber at the corners, connecting lumber, and a top.

It does hold the 50 gallon tank, but what if I had bought the 65 gallon tank I really wanted? It would have fit the space, but been much heavier. But it was out of stock and I needed that new water heater NOW.

So I got the 50 gallon one.

We discovered the disaster about 4:30 on Sunday -- shut off the water and gas -- called Sears -- bought the new heater and put in the work order for installation the next day.

After several games of phone tag, we got the installer over at 3:30PM on Monday (President's Day) -- by 4, the true extent of the water damage was apparent and we had a Water Damage expert arrive by 5:30 -- laying a cost of thousands upon us.

If the builder had correctly designed the water tank installation, there would have been no damage.

My husband went to Home Depot and got an aluminum tray they sell to make up for this chronic mis-design by builders. Ever wonder why Home Depot isn't in the house building business?

We have yet to get a plumber to hook that tray up to drain to the outdoors, so this won't happen again.

Meanwhile, as the water damage expert sat and waited, we got a house insurance claim number, then filled out the work order. The claims adjuster is supposed to come by on Thursday to inspect the old heater (which we had to have returned because the nice installer took it away so it wouldn't cost extra for the city to haul it away.)

The water damage guy is due here any moment for a follow-up visit.

Silly me, when laying out my work schedule to ramp up for ConDor I forgot to include busted water heater, just as Linnea forgot to include traffic accident in her course planning.

But meanwhile, I have recommended her online course on torturing characters to one of my writing students! Great course title!!!

Now, all those who want to get their writing up to selling -- remember, "life" doesn't stop knocking you over, down, and sideways even when you have contracts arears, or a burning urge to get something on the market now!

And those following my sequence of World Building posts -- these two incidents in two writer's lives are the sum and substance of where we get our worldbuilding ideas. It's how you learn to think like a hero. It's where those questions arise that lead to whole new alien worlds.

What would happen if a house builder from Earth tried to set up a business on some far off planet in some other solar system -- with people who were far from human?

What would happen to a house builder from Earth using these kinds of business practices who tried to set up a business on Vulcan?

What planets are there out there where a builder from Earth could actually do better than he/she was doing on Earth?

And how about fantasy? How would Harry Dresden's world deal with the problem of elevating a gas water heater? Harry can heat water with magic, but it's expensive. His presence has a negative effect on the laws of physics (they haven't brought that out yet in the TV series and I don't know if they will).

And what about all the laws of traffic accidents among aliens? What a way to meet the hunk-of-your-life! How do you cope with whiplash while falling in love?

THAT is how writers do worldbuilding -- by noticing the story potential in everyday events.

That is where we get all our crazy ideas -- from the boring, mundane, distractions from writing.

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/