Giving Self-Publishing a Bad Name

If you live in or near Maryland, you'll have heard about the scandal and criminal charges surrounding Baltimore ex-mayor Catherine Pugh's self-published series, "Healthy Holly." The books are intended to teach children about health issues such as nutrition, exercise, etc. Pugh sold $500,000 worth of them to the University of Maryland Medical System while serving on its board. She has also been accused of pre-selling books that were ultimately never printed and of sometimes selling the same hypothetical copies more than once to different customers, then not fulfilling the orders. UMMS donated its share of the books to the Baltimore City school system, which has stated that it didn't use any of them in the curriculum. Most of those copies have been warehoused rather than given to children. (In addition to the publishing-related charges, Pugh has also been convicted of fraud and tax evasion.)

Here's a timeline of the major events in the developing case, with a photo of a few of the book covers:

Healthy Holly Book Scandal

The books have been described as "clumsily" and "sloppily" written and produced. They're said to "contain grammatical and spelling errors, such as a main character’s name being spelled two different ways and the word 'vegetable' appearing as 'vegetale'." It strikes me as sad that many people may get their sole impression of self-publishing from this case.

This article goes into more detail about the series and what was done with the copies:

Just How Many "Healthy Holly" Books?

Only two of the books are listed on Amazon, as far as I could see, and neither has a "look inside" feature, so I couldn't evaluate the quality of the writing. Secondhand copies are priced at absurd levels, up to five figures. The reviews of the single book that has any (HEALTHY HOLLY: EXERCISING IS FUN) discuss the author's illegal actions, not the texts of the stories themselves. They all rate it one star except for a two-sentence five-star review, which I think is pretty funny: "I bought 50 of these and finally my rooftop deck permit got approved. 10/10 would buy again."

I'm willing to believe Pugh originally wrote and published the series with good intentions. Yet apparently the temptation of leveraging her political career to promote and sell her work overwhelmed her. Note to self: "Never use official connections to pressure readers into buying books"—not that most of us are ever likely to face such a temptation on that scale.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

When Publishers Fold

Recently, author Delilah Devlin hosted me on her blog, where I wrote about what to do with books and stories "orphaned" by the closing of a publisher:

Rescuing Orphaned Works

In re-releasing the fiction mentioned in this post, I had the advantage that those novels, novellas, and short stories had been thoroughly edited before their original publication. Therefore, I could have confidence that professional editors had already deemed them to be publishable. Still, I welcomed the opportunity to comb through them again. It's a rare piece of writing that gets into print with no typos, not to mention examples of minor stylistic awkwardness that need a bit of polishing. Also, one of the publishers that closed, Ellora's Cave, seemed to have an irrational aversion to commas. I'm delighted to be able to put the punctuation in those stories back where it belongs. As an English degree holder and former professional proofreader, I cringed to imagine that some readers would think I didn't know the right way to punctuate a sentence.

As you may know, the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust is publishing its final installments of the Darkover and "Sword and Sorceress" anthologies this year. I'm sure lots of other readers and writers will miss those books as much as I will. The Trust has also decided to let many earlier volumes go out of print. That was disappointing news, because I'd expected my stories in the older anthologies to remain available in perpetuity. Thanks to the Internet, e-books, and self-publishing, I was able to collect my "Sword and Sorceress" contributions in a Kindle collection. (The MZB estate gave Darkover contributors permission to reprint those out-of-print stories, too, but unfortunately I didn't realize until too late that the files were no longer on my hard drive. Luckily, Amazon has many used copies of the Darkover volumes for sale, so the books and their contents haven't faded into nonexistence.)

In addition to minor edits and corrections, another decision to face in re-issuing older works is whether to update the settings into the contemporary era. With my first vampire novel, DARK CHANGELING, I had a definite in-universe reason for the year of its action, because of when it made sense for the protagonist to have been born. Therefore, I didn't change the time period, with the result that the date of the direct sequel, CHILD OF TWILIGHT, explicitly set thirteen to fourteen years later, couldn't change either. That's one difficulty I could avoid with several of my fantasy stories; the culture of "fairy-tale realm" or "vaguely Dark Ages England" remains unaffected by advances in computer or cell-phone technology.

In a way, it's a pleasure to have control over the presentation of some of my older fiction. On the down side, a self-published author also bears the full burden of marketing and promotion. How does one stimulate fresh interest in books and stories that readers have already been exposed to in earlier releases?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Self-Publishing And Qualifying For Professional Review by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Self-Publishing And Qualifying For Professional Review

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

I got a Facebook Message from Johan Lynn Carter, whose Friend request I has recently authorized -- though I didn't recognize the name.

She asked if I'd review her first novel.  If a publisher asks, and I know that publisher, the editor, or the publicist, then I usually just say I'll read the book.

But if I don't have a clue what it's about or why a review from me, a professional reviewer who is apt to be stringent and demanding, would be relevant or useful in terms of connecting a novel to its proper audience, I usually ask some relevant questions.

It's a list of questions, pretty much set in stone by decades of practice with very busy publicists or editors.  This is a business. There is no time to waste.  Time is money.  Information is coin of the realm.

The review request came with few of the answers to those questions -- which ordinarily accompany such requests.  So I thought about the phrasing of the request, looked at Johan's profile on Facebook, and wondered if a real gem of a find had just fallen into my lap.

I think maybe so.

So I want to point your attention to this byline so you'll watch for it -- and I need to recommend that you pick up a copy of this first novel, even though it is self-published.  Why?  Because I liked it?  No, because I deem this new writer has what it takes to curl your toes -- even though the first attempt may not quite get that far for you.  The technique may be faulty but the payload is dynamite.

Reading, or just filing for future reading, a copy of this novel will allow you to watch the rising arc of talent striving toward commercial distribution and eventually mass market and awards attention.

This kind of a query is how that usually begins - and before self-publishing, other new writers had no way to access that first work that set it all in motion.  This is valuable beyond words -- grab a copy.

Here below is Johan Lynn Carter (a pen name) speaking in her own voice.  We exchanged these comments privately on Facebook Messenger, and she kindly edited the transcript to make more sense to you.

BTW - this is not the best way to approach a reviewer.  Few would see through the amateur to the budding professional below.

Here is her original query and my first response:
----------quote--------
Hi Jacqueline and thanks for friending me! I've been following your blog for quite some time and it has always been a great pleasure discovering new books thanks to you 🙂

I'm contacting you as I just finished my debut novel, The Sky Regency, which could be summed up as "Jane Austen meets a sexy alien prince". I've already received great reviews so far and would be honored to have your opinion on the book.

If you're interested in the science fiction romance genre with a historical setting, I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

Thanks a lot in advance and keep up the good work!

All the best,

Johan

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

Very solid, very nicely crafted query -- nice identification of relevance -- offering a good pitch summary.  And short.  Obviously, she's studied query writing, so that's a big plus, igniting serious hope.

Caveats: "just finished" and "debut novel."  The end of the query asserts that I won't be disappointed, and the opening indicates she has an idea of what I read and like.  The "I've already received great reviews so far" is too vague.  If it said "5 stars on Kindle" or "New York Times Book Review" there would be little question.  If it was a quote from a review in a newspaper, especially one large enough that I might have heard of it, there would be no question.

However, a writer's own judgement of their first novel length work is rarely accurate.  In fact, a writer's own judgement of the reviews of their first work is rarely useful information.  But this might be that rare case.  Hmmm.

So I thought and thought, and finally decided I had to have more information from Johan.

I messaged back:

JL: Nice -- which blog of mine do you follow and what do you like most?  Have you read any of my books?  Are you on the Sime~Gen Group?

And JC - Johan Carter - messaged back:

JC: I follow aliendjinnromances and like the book reviews mixed with scientific articles

That was really helpful information -- a researcher after my own heart.

So I needed to know more about this writer's ability to take criticism which is the dividing line between an amateur and a pro, along with the ability to turn out publishable copy regardless of whether there is any inspiration and regardless of interruptions and distractions.

So I commented:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/03/reviews-31-dave-bara-lightship.html
was pretty harsh.  Yours might be similarly treated.

JC: I did like it actually.  I also really liked your recent novel in the Sime~Gen universe. I actually read the Dushau trilogy as a teenager.

So this was getting even more hopeful -- definitely a researcher, which is a prime quality necessary to write Historical Romance and/or Futuristic Romance of any kind.  I love researchers because they find out things I don't know -- I love learning new things.

Therefore, I replied:
JL: OK then tell me about your novel -- what is the story in one sentence?  Whose story is it?  What is their goal and why do they drive toward that goal?  What is the theme? Oh, and who is the publisher?

At the end of the following exchange, I asked Johan Lynn Carter to edit the exchange and send it to me for posting here, with any additional commentary she thought appropriate.

Here below is the result -- and where to get her first book.  It will very likely be one of the most valuable assets in your library within 5 years.

-----------TRANSCRIPT----------
JL Carter – QA with Jacqueline Lichtenberg

JL: What is the story in one sentence?

JC: An alien invasion set in Regency-era England.

JL: Whose story is it?

JC: The story revolves around Margaret, a 20-year-old middle-class woman who is forced by her family to marry a duke.

JL: What is the theme?

JC: The main theme is relationships, either between humans or with alien species.

JL: Who is the publisher?

JC: I decided to self-publish this novel.

JL: How many rejections did you get first?

JC: I didn't approach any publisher actually. I considered traditional publishers for other books but I felt this one was better suited for self-publishing as it is a mix of genres and would be more difficult to sell to a publisher.

JL: Who edited it, then?

JC: I have a writer friend who edited it. We mainly worked on the outline and character development. My friend helped me structure it using the Blake Snyder beat sheets.

JL: How do you distinguish it from a Doctor Who episode? And what element makes it science fiction rather than steam punk?

JC: I did draw inspiration from Doctor Who but the treatment is closer to historical romance, following the codes of Regency romance in particular with some actual historical facts being depicted. It is a science-fiction story to me as it shows futuristic science and extraterrestrial life. It also shares elements of steampunk as we learn throughout the book that the alien invasion changed the pace of technology and brought new inventions before the Victorian era (where steampunk takes its roots).

JL: Can you enumerate the beginning, middle and end plot events? Can you enumerate the beginning, Middle and End plot events -- one short declarative sentence each of the form:  Bob does this -- Bob changes his mind -- Bob succeeds.

JC: Margaret gets engaged young – Aliens attack – Fiancé leaves – Margaret is seduced by an alien – Fiancé comes back – Margaret betrays the alien and marries her fiancé.

JL:  My next question would be for you to show me how the theme you articulated is hammered home by the plot.

JC: At first, Margaret is forced in a relationship with someone she doesn’t know. She grows to accept her condition even though she admits she doesn’t love her fiancé. There is a plot device in the form of a necklace her fiancé gave her as an engagement gift. The relationship is then challenged with the arrival of the invader, forcing Margaret to make a choice.

JL: Then I will ask for the elevator pitch where you pretend I am a TV producer and you want to sell me this series.

JC: It’s a Jane Austen story with sexy aliens 

JL: Next test is pacing. How many pages is it? What happens on the middle page exactly half way? Is it the Bob Changes His Mind plot event? If not, do you fix it by cutting or adding, or do you need a new plot structure?

JC: The book is about 200 pages long. On page 100, Margaret is having a fever dream about the alien prince and begins to feel attracted to him.

JL: I suspect you have the outline for a series of novels rather than a novel.

JC: I did plan a series. I wrote an outline for the series and the first book as well. The first draft ended with a cliffhanger but I changed for it a happy ending (or rather happy for now)

-----------end TRANSCRIPT ------------

We did not get to the issue of CONFLICT and THEME STRUCTURE because this was enough for a decision on my part.

After I asked for Beginning-Middle-End summary, Johan asked if I wanted just the main plot or sub-plots.  The pacing test, she answered with 200 pages.

You can't do such a complex, two-culture (human and Alien) depiction in 200 pages.  Remember the key beginner's posts on Theme Structure:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-you-can-do-in-novel-that-you-cant.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/shifting-pov.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html

These posts delineate how themes and plots are related, and how every sub-plot must depict a sub-theme derived from a main theme -- and how a dual or triple POV structure must reticulate through that same theme structure.

The shorter the work, the fewer sub-themes can be depicted, explicated, or hinted at.

There have been writers, like Theodore Sturgeon, for example, who acquired over decades as a prolific professional writer, the technical skills to carry off a tour de force such as that.  Reading such works thrills the soul.

But a first novel -- from a writer without a long bibliography of professionally published short stories sold to very widely circulated (thus tightly edited) magazines -- has a very low probability of demonstrating such a skill level.

It is often said one must write a million words for the garbage can before attempting a submission to a professional publisher.  That is because integrating all the skills we've discussed here -- most especially the intricacies of theme-structure layered under plot-structure mixed with story-structure, and then arranging the whole thing into an artistically satisfying pacing -- takes a lot of practice even for the best among us.

A big clue was the admission that there was a series lurking behind this 200 page work.  I think you will all adore that larger series once it is arranged into publishable form.  This is going to be great stuff, memorable reading.  But it is a long way from being that, right now.

Nevertheless, go grab a copy for yourself.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Sky-Regency-SciFi-Historical-Romance-ebook/dp/B06XBGXFCZ

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34403979-the-sky-regency

This is very likely the most valuable book you will ever own.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 11: Terminology in Romance by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 11
Terminology in Romance
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Last week we looked again at Marketing Fiction, and at what sells besides Sex & Violence.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/11/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

So today we're going to discuss the part terminology plays in marketing and propose a new term to replace the term "fanfic."  We need to replace the term "fanfic" because of the Changing World in the title of this series of blog posts.

Fanfic has been the driving force behind much of the change, but fanfic itself came from something and has now leaped up to something that makes it require a new label.  That label will open vistas of potential only some of you have seen coming. 

So publishing terminology has its roots inside the fiction that's being marketed, which in turn is rooted in the writer's subconscious, in choice of objectives, in motivation for writing at all.

That's very abstract stuff, but language itself tries to make it concrete.

The classic question, "Why do you write?" is based on the assumption that there is A reason (not a plethora, not a whole personality profile).

Marketing fiction is all about finding fiction that is "aimed at" a specific "audience."  That assumes that a whole bunch of people all share ONE motive for reading (i.e. buying) fiction.

That assumption of a writer and reader sharing just one motivation is the reason that the question, "Why do you writer?" stymies writers. 

There is a why in there somewhere -- but it is not composed of anything you can articulate in a single word or sentence.

Yet all fiction is about that why.

You write a story that is about something (even if you don't consciously know what at the time).  The point of the exercise is not the "something" that the story is "about" -- but rather the "about" itself.  Being ABOUT is what Art is.

As I've discussed in these blog posts on writing craft, stories are Art.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

Art depicts reality - it is not reality, itself.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-2-conflict-and-resolution.html

And marketing Art shifts and changes, more rapidly now than ever.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-important-book-what-makes-novel.html

Now consider that language, any language, also "depicts" -- the map is not the territory.  Language itself is symbolism.

We've discussed symbolism at some length:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

The essential ingredient in fiction is conflict.  Therefore, the writer must depict both sides of a philosophical argument (a thematic statement) in order for the fiction to be 'about.'  The two sides of an argument must conflict, and ultimately resolve (even if there are issues left over for a sequel.)

The "both sides" structure of a story conflict is artificial.  That division into just two sides is symbolism, not reality.

Sifting two clear, opposing points of view out of the pea-soup morass of human experience so that each side can be clearly depicted is Art.

The process of sifting and defining the two sides is the same as the process of paining a picture.  The graphic artist "selects" certain lines, composition, arrangement, colors, sharp/fuzzy focus, perspective, to "lead the eye" just as a story-writer "leads the mind" via composition.

Having laid out a clean, clear, two-sided conflict, the writer must aim the narrative (a narrative is a beginning, middle, end set of points that are given connection by the writer's composition of the picture extracted from reality).

The narrative must be structured to aim at a particular audience.

If that audience is large enough, the economics of "publishing" (traditional publishing) takes over.  The widely-aimed story becomes commercially viable at a certain break point.  That break point is constantly changing.  It used to be the volume of cardboard consumed by China dictated that break point by dictating the price of newsprint paper used to print paperbacks.

China at that time was just beginning to become a manufacturing powerhouse, and needed boxes made from cardboard to ship finished product.

So trade treaties with China (politically controversial because of China's Communism) governed the subject matter and narrative structure, the composition, of mass market paperbacks, and thus of hardcovers that could be re-published as paperbacks reaching a larger readership.

Then came our "changing world" that I've been writing about here since 2007.


With the advent of usable e-reading screens, the e-book market which had grown via PDF download, dedicated reading devices of dubious worth, html websites posting fanfic, just plain exploded.

It pretty much caught traditional publishers by surprise.

They hadn't followed the growth of hits on fanfic websites. 

And for various reasons, traditional publishers had always been way out of touch with what "readers want" -- and more in touch with what a reader will buy based on a cover, or cover-blurb, or based on what books are placed in a bookstore window or "dump" carton in an aisle. 

Book sales are all that matter to a publisher.  And book sales don't matter at all to a reader, as long as the reader gets satisfaction, or can find the next book in a series they're following.

Book sales matter to a writer only insofar as their income stream is satisfactory.  When income is satisfactory, the matter of sales fades from the writer's consciousness.  The writer is concerned only with ABOUT, with the urge to DEPICT the world in a revealing light that makes sense out of chaos.

To a writer, only the story matters, only the narrative matters. 

That's why writers are so hurt and bewildered when a traditional publisher turns down the next book in a series.  The writer is about finishing the story.  The reader is about finding out the ending of the story.  The publisher is about efficient use of resources to make a profit. 

So with the advent of usable reading screens, the readers who wanted to finish reading the story, and the writers who wanted to finish publishing the story, and some entrepreneurs who saw that connection, founded small publishing via e-books.

The first commercial level explosion of e-book sales for such small publishers was in the Vampire Romance.

Traditional Publishing started this trend -- some might say, Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire started the trend, but I think it appeared first in YA novels about a Vampire who turns up in a High School, either as a student, a teacher, or on the periphery.  13 year old readers become adult readers in about 5 years.

And it was about 5 years after the popularity of YA vampires that we saw the Vampire Romance emerge onto bookstore shelves, buried inside the Romance genre paperbacks.

A  couple years later, Vampire Romance got a label on the spine, different labels from different publishers.

Sales peaked, then started to fall off as other sorts of Paranormal Romance appeared sporadically.  How do I know sales peaked and fell?  Because I was marketing my own material via an agent at that time, and Manhattan lunches gleaned proprietary stats and reports on how the purchasing editors were thinking.

I found that by the time I wanted into that Vampire Romance market, the publishers were saying they were over-bought on Vampire Romance, had more than a year's worth in stock or under contract, and would not even consider another submission.

They ran out of Vampire Romances, and by then other sub-genres were selling better. 

There's a perverse logic in the publishing business model, rooted in the disconnect between the objectives of a writer and the objectives of a publisher.

So when Vampire Romance readers suddenly could not find any more paperbacks to suit them, they quickly learned on the grapevine that Vampire Romance was alive and well, thriving and growing in the e-book market.

That demand for Vampire Romance, in part, drove the demand for readers that drove the technological improvements in screens.  Improved screens increased demand for e-books, and other varieties of novels, and now even non-fiction, are all e-book.

And of course, you've all heard of the contretemps between Amazon and Hatchet and other publishers over the price of e-books.  Readers have been saying for a long time that e-book prices are about double what they should be.

Small publishers are consolidating (buying each other), and refining the business model.  Many, many publishers that started up in the nascent e-book market have closed.  And now the traditional publishers used their marketing strength (and Amazon & B&N) to yank the e-book market away from small publishers. 

http://www.booksandsuch.com/blog/amazon-hachette-battle-matters/

So writers who wanted to reach their own readers self-published.

Many self-publishing writers are New York Times Bestselling writers, taking back the rights to their NYT best sellers, re-publishing them by themselves or through small e-book publishers, and then finishing their series.  Sometimes they bring out new books in new series.

Meanwhile, a lot of writers who could not sell to traditional publishing went with self-publishing.

Some of these had honed their craft on fanfic websites, getting feedback from readers, learning to use beta-readers, and grow into a skill set that works to produce good novels that hit their readers nerves squarely.

Other self-publishing writers learned as they went. 

There's an organization for e-book publishers and writers something like SFWA or RWA, complete with genre book awards and cover art awards which I joined years ago when I had my first e-book out, Molt Brother.  Now it's in paper, e-book, and also audiobook, along with the sequel, City of a Million Legends.



http://www.epicorg.com/  is the website of the e-book professionals organization and it also has an active forum where people exchange a lot of information, writers find publishers, and so on.

These are the people generating the change in the world of publishing.

So we are seeing an increasing level of quality in self-published books.

Historically, Science Fiction Fandom invented fanfic -- fiction written by fans for fans.  For the most part, science fiction fanzines never published fiction, but rather discussed conventions and novels.  But fan fiction thrived in smaller circulation, often on carbon paper, though usually not using established characters of a professional writer. 

With the advent of Spockanalia and T-Negative, Star Trek fans discovered the joys of fanfic written to expand and expound on the TV characters.  And gradually, fan writers created original characters to interact with the established characters, revealing new depths to the shallow TV depictions.

That evolution of fan fiction is the main subject of my Bantam Paperback STAR TREK LIVES!



STAR TREK was the first TV Series to engage the fertile imagination of organized science fiction fandom.  Yes, organized.  There were (and are) clubs with constitutions, slates of officers, and annual elections, plus dues and publications.  The World Science Fiction Society holds the annual World Science Fiction Convention (worldcon) and awards the Hugo, as well as other Awards.

Science Fiction fandom was (and is) organized and connected.  Today it's connected via Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.  Then it was snailmail and telephone.

From STAR TREK LIVES! and the New York Star Trek Conventions, the media picked up on the term fanfic (especially slash), and popularized the term FAN, fanzine, fan fiction, and eventually the term FANFIC. 

In that term, FANFIC, may lie the barricade between self-published Romance novels and the prestige they deserve.  It may also give us a clue as to where the resistance against Romance comes from in the general population, even though they flock to films with a tear-jerking Romance, and give awards to the RomCom (the romantic comedy) -- yet shy from Romance per se.

Terminology is key to changing people's assumptions, or prejudices.  We changed from the term "nigger" to the term Black to indicate elevating the prestige, the potential value of a person. 

The terms Liberal and Progressive, Communist and Socialist, Independent, etc etc are continuously redefined, and then changed. 

So let's examine the origin of the term "fan" to see what it is telling the world about us.

The media, and now dictionaries and major sources, keep insisting on a misconception about the origin and meaning of the term "fan."

They insist that the science fiction fan is a FANATIC (i.e. not sane but obsessed.)

That is the label that was slapped on science fiction fandom way back before it was organized, and even afterward for decades.

A fanatic is a person who is not in their "right mind."  And usually, being a mild conditiion, the fanatic "out-grows it" or "gets over it."

Can you imagine out-growing or getting over Romance?  Come on! 

But they are saying that science fiction is a "phase" that some teens go through and therefore it is negligible, and can safely be tolerated and disregarded.  There is nothing in it (they said in the 1930's) that has any bearing on reality or the future.

30 years later, that generation sent men to the Moon. 

The next generation of science fiction fanatics invented the internet and the web.

The next twenty years saw the advent of the cell phone, then the smartphone.

Fanaticism is a mental disorder suffered by teens, like measles was considered a childhood disease you just had to suffer through. 

Fanaticism is a disease.

Today they say of the same age-group that Videogaming is "addictive."  That's it's unhealthy for teens to communicate with each other via social media.

In the 1940's they said the same thing of that generation's teens who were communicating with each other via telephone.  The picture of the teen monopolizing the ONLY phone-line in a household, holding long conversations with fellow teens (often of opposite gender) was a feature of life in the 1950's, tolerated and scorned by adults.

If you're a writer intending to grab a market-share for your work, watch what teens are doing now.  It takes about 5 years to write a novel, from Idea to published, and in 5 years today's teens will be at peak entertainment consumer years. 

But they may pick up the scorn associated with terminology used when talking about Romance Genre novels, and never explore the rich, complex, and satisfying worlds Romance writers build.

Or, if they do browse mass market paperbacks, they may never discover the worlds being created by writers using small publishers or self-publishing in e-books.

I get a couple of newsletters pitching free and 0.99cent e-books, Romance genre, Mysteries, etc. 

https://www.bookbub.com/home/

I often see books pitched as having many hundreds of 5-star reviews on Amazon.

The star-review has become the self-publisher's marketing tool, and yes, there is some fraud associated with this statistic, even though Amazon tries to prevent that. 

Still, read some of those reviews.  Even if you would scorn the book because of typos or need for editing out inconsistencies and filling plot-holes, look at the comments by readers who focus entirely on the payload, the way the STORY made them feel, not the technical flaws in the writing craft.

Those 5-star reviews are typical of fanzine reader responses to fanfic based on a TV-show. 

Get that free newsletter, click through to Amazon on a title with lots of 5-star reviews and read carefully.  And while reading, think about this.

Self-publishing is hard (writing the novel is easy by comparison).  The odds are against you selling a single copy to anyone you don't know personally. 

But there are associations of self-publishing writers who can teach you how to connect with cheap promotional strategies that might work. 

There is very likely an audience hungry for what you want to sell them.  You finding them, them finding you, or "going viral" is a long-shot.  Finding and serving a market is what publishers do -- their business model is suited to that process.  Writing uses a different business model.

But because of the adequate e-reader screens now available fairly cheap, there is a readership starving for what you write.  They just won't recognize it when starting right at it. 

What do we need to get that instant recognition?

We need a label, a symbol, a TERM which describes what this kind of fiction is, where it comes from, why it deserves their attention, and most important what it actually delivers.

The term self-published has gathered scorn because of the missing editorial steps people have become used to.

The term fanfic has gathered scorn because of the old (and inaccurate) term fanatic. 

What other artform besides writing has, historically, been a source of pure satisfaction and meaningful entertainment (and information)?

Think about the music industry.

Commercially available music has its origins in the Bards taking news, information, and historical Events and gossip from town to town, presenting it all as song. 

Isolated towns had their own youngsters who sang and played music.

Think about the old West.  Whoever in town could saw on a fiddle played for the square dancing. 

Along with all this, came one of the oldest artforms, which became known as Folk Music. 

Here's a wikipedia article on 1940's folk music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_folk_music_revival

In the 1960's, people like Pete Seeger, Theodore Bikel, Woodie Guthrie, Johnny Cash, and people you've never heard of because they only played and sang at weddings and birthday parties.  Yesteryear's Garage Bands.

You can get this old music on Amazon, iTunes, and other websites. 

http://www.last.fm/music/Peter,+Paul+&+Mary/+similar

http://tropicalglen.com/Jukebox/Genre/FolkMusic/NewChannel.html

Yes, politics grabbed the folk song and ran with it.  Theodore Bikel's concert records have patter that reveals all that. 

But folk music reflects the life and times of those who perform and those who foster it.  It's folk, not professional.

In the 1960's it became big time professional, and highly respected -- because it made money for the music industry in records and concerts (and movies).

Country Music is the professional development of old, folk music by people who farmed and lived too far away from cities to associate with city folks.  Country was isolated because transit was slow, and internet didn't exist.  Today, many places only have satellite service if that. 

A lot of money has been made from Country Music -- and don't forget Elvis Presley came from that venue.

Today the term folk music doesn't carry the opprobrium that fanfic does.

But, if you examine folk music down to the roots, you will see that folk music and self-published novels (from people who were nerve traditionally published and actively do not want to be traditionally published) share a similar kind of popularity. 

And if you juxtapose real folk music (by folks not getting paid to do it) with professional music (by people who do it for profit), you will see an artistic similarity between folk and professional music that exactly parallels the similarity between fanfic and traditionally published fic.

Trace origins and development, find the driving force behind music, and trace how that force generated the Music Industry, and then do the same for novels.

Go back into the 1800's and study women's Gothic novels, circulating as hand-written copies among housewives.  That was fanfic.

I expect you can do the same study with Art.  There are Great Artists who are "Great" because we've heard of them.  And we've heard of them because they had Patrons and got commissions to decorate famous places (like the Cysteine Chapel, for example).  And there are folk artists whose work is left to us only as fragmentary remains on pottery sherds dug up by archeologists.

There's commercial art -- advertisements, book covers -- and there's fine art shown in galleries.  And then there's folk art, which you find in people's homes, done for the pleasure of their families.  Think about quilting, and going out to "the Country" to buy handmade quilts to hang on the wall as art. Those quilts are folk art, and they are respected.

Today, we also have Fan Art published in fanzines. 

All of these art-forms have a folk version, and a professional version.

Why shouldn't fan fiction and self-published fan fiction be the FOLKFIC of our world?

Self-publishing is so closely parallel, and often related to, fanfic devoted to underlying works and  published on websites for free reading, that the only difference is the homage paid to the underlying work.

Fanfic writers introduce original characters, and re-interpret existing characters, sometimes take them to new worlds, tell parts of a story not treated in the professionally published novels, but it is original writing.

You all know how much fanfic my Sime~Gen Universe novels have generated.  There are millions of words posted on simegen.com alone.

http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/

Also, on simegen.com we have posted some classic Trek fanzine material.

http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/

You might note on that /startrek/ index page that we have a new addition, the Scholastic Voice Magazine Star Trek Story Contest Winner from 1980.  It was written by a High School boy,  Thomas Vinciguerra, who went on to become a nationally published journalist, and who wrote many articles about Star Trek.  You can find links and the story at:

http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/contestwinner/

Here's a 2014 contest on marketing on the internet.
http://www.geekwire.com/2014/seattle-public-library-internet/
-------quote---------
As part of its ongoing Seattle Writes initiative, the library has partnered with self-publishing and distribution platform Smashwords to encourage local writers to package their writing for an audience. The eyeball icing on the finger-typing cake? A contest, open until midnight on October 15, in which up to three entrants who publish via Smashwords will have their eBooks included for circulation in the SPL eBook collection.
The fine print is hardly daunting. Have an SPL library card. Be 18 or older. Publish your eBook (for free) with Smashwords on its website. Enter the contest.
Oh. And write the eBook.
....
-------end quote------


Also a new addition to the simegen.com/fandom/ section is a short novel by a Sime~Gen fanfic writer, Mary Lou Mendum, done in Catherine Asaro's Skolian Empire universe, using some of Catherine's characters, and a whole cast of original characters.

http://www.simegen.com/fandom/skolianempire/ 

Mary Lou is an example of a writer who specifically does not want to write professionally.  It's a hobby, and she does it to please specific people.  In the case of the Skolian Universe novel, it was done to entertain someone while ill.

She's an example of a folk-writer, writing folk-fic.

Or perhaps it should be called filkfic as akin to Filk Singing.

The term Filk to describe the original lyrics sung to popular tunes done at Science Fiction Conventions dates back to a typo in a con program book.  The term was immediately adopted as a badge of honor, though what they did with music was one of the oldest traditions in folk music (new words to old songs, variations on old tunes to adapt to new lyrics).

Folk Art is the baseline creativity of humanity singing the song of the universe.

Commercial Art (mass market paperbacks) is Folk Art leveled to the lowest common denominator, made accessible to all.

Fanfic and self-publishing are both types of folk art, folk-storytelling.

The material is popular not because an insane person created it, a fanatic, but because perfectly sane people with experiences in common resonate to it, enjoy it, and elevate the performers of it to local celebrity status.

The folk of the town admire and reward the local bard, the story-teller who teaches morality to children, the shaman who teaches history to children in rhyme, and the artist who draws pictures of local events.

Fanfic and Self-published works resemble Folk Music both in content, and appeal and business model. 

But "Folk" carries a much higher prestige than "Fanatic." 

The most powerful force in civilization is the folks, not insanity or teen phases.

You don't tolerate the folks.  You admire them.   Discount the power of the folks at your peril (or so the rulers of France discovered to their tribulation.  England had a problem with those pesky colonists and their Boston Tea Party, too.)

So I propose replacing the term fanfic with the term folkfic or Folk-fic, or some variant so it includes self-published original universe fiction.  Here you find the stories the folk (the largest market there is) really want. 

The More Things Change; The More They Stay The Same.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

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

Gold Under Ice by Carol Buchanan

Folks, I met Carol  Buchanan on Twitter (just as I'd met Gene Doucette there), she mentioned she'd written a Historical titled GOLD UNDER ICE, about gold mining during the civil war in Montana.  I think we were talking about "Westerns" which I love on some #chat and so I asked for a review copy.

She sent me the e-book (it's also in paperback). 

I loved this book.  It's a feel-good read that is so smooth and nicely crafted.  I'll be raving about it for a while.

As I mentioned last week, I can't think how to use it in a writing lesson.  This novel is so smooth, so tightly woven, there's just no way to manipulate it the way I showed you that you could manipulate Gene Doucette's IMMORTAL. 

But I think you should try reading it for contrast/compare. 
http://www.amazon.com/Gold-Under-Ice-Carol-Buchanan/dp/0982782217/rereadablebooksr/

So I reviewed GOLD UNDER ICE in my column for The Monthly Aspectarian - it's in the June 2011 issue.  (for print magazines you have to work with a lead time)

I sent Carol Buchanan a copy of my review.

Now consider this magazine is New Age and has a very steep "slant" -- it's readers are conversant with Tarot, Astrology, and dozens of magical systems and neo-pagan practices.  I talk jargon in that column, and readers know what I mean. 

So I didn't think Carol would like what I wrote.

She wrote back that she was pleased  to be presented to a readership she had no idea would be interested in this novel, but she had no idea what I'd said.

Hmmm.  Thought about that, and strove to explain what I'd said. 

I'd indicated that GOLD UNDER ICE was a novel of Initiation in the 9's of the Tarot, in Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles. 

If you've read my posts here on Tarot, you should be able to see immediately why this would be a grand hook for New Age readers.

And you should see instantly what an accomplishment I thought the novel was.

Maybe not.

Here are two posts listing my posts on Tarot, in case you missed them.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html

Read the 9's. 

I've only posted on Swords and Pentacles on this blog -- the set of chapters on Wands and Cups are in the as yet unpublished books on Tarot I've written.  The holdup is lack of interior artwork - 3 versions of the Tree of Life diagram.

But 9's are 9's - all 4 represent the Astral Plane in some way.

So here's this novel, GOLD UNDER ICE, that is a real treasure of a find for me, and I'm trying to explain to the author why I wrote an offhand reference to the Tarot 9's in the review. 

The Hero, main character, point of view character - the person whose story we live through in this novel, goes through 4 Major Initiation experiences simultaneously.

The whole thing is woven together in a life's biography integral to the Civil War years in both New York and Montana (during the time it became a Territory of it's own).

There's a rich tapestry of historical fact, without a single expository lump -- the facts are all used smoothly the way Andre Norton always wove alien background into her novels.

The author was surprised to hear me liken Historicals to Fantasy Genre, or SF -- but she writes a little bit like Andre Norton, but for adults (yes, GOLD UNDER ICE is a sequel to a prequel that won an award, and it's got an ongoing Romance thread to pant over!)

But the writing technique for building imaginary worlds is identical to that needed for Historical worlds.  After all, Gene Roddenberry sold Star Trek as "Wagon Train To The Stars."

Each of these tidbits of historical fact is related to the overall themes, the 4 Initiations and what it takes to pass through those stages into adulthood.

The main character "arcs" -- changes, and grows in emotional maturity by facing situations that are natural to life in those times.

OK, that's easy, but Buchanan does 4 of them simultaneously without letting the seams bulge!  This is a beautiful novel for the student of the esoteric. 

But she didn't know what I'd called her novel!  How could I explain it?

Here's how I boiled it down for her. Could you do it better?

---------

Yesod is the name of the Sephera of the Tree of Life right "above" our everyday world, the nearest "place" or psychological plane, where Time is not Defined -- it's the "astral plane" of dreams where everything is plastic.

The Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles are the "suits" of the Tarot - each "suit" represents one of the 4 "Worlds" of the Kaballah, Thought, Emotion, Action, Materialization.  Each of the 4 has all 10 Sepheroth.

This readership can be counted on to be familiar with (or learning) all that shorthand.

9 Wands is the state of being all fenced in with defenses - your guy is VERY defensive, all wound up in his own ideas until "she" comes into his heart.

9 Cups is all about fulfillment of emotional potential - getting what you really want out of life (he falls in true Love)

9 Swords is your deepest subconscious nightmares - your guy goes back home and faces down his inner demons

9 Pentacles - wealth - being independently wealthy, being strongly situated in a "house" (or life) with solid foundations.  Independence of wealth - security, and it's also associated with INHERITANCE (in your guy's case, he inherited a debt).  It's about materializing your dreams.  This is where that "Honor" aspect comes in.

Putting all 4 together, those are the life lessons your guy comes through with flying colors.

Any way you slice it, you wrote a good book.
---------------
GOLD UNDER ICE is totally different from Gene Doucette's IMMORTAL, almost the obverse, but only because of Point of View and the nature of the character whose head you ride in. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Harlequin Horizons & RWA, MWA, SFWA, EPIC

I have an anecdote to tell you regarding a power-lunch with the head of Harlequin that happened years ago, but seems to be finally percolating to the top where the world can see effects. Of course, there's no way to trace what we see today to my influence, and what we are seeing today would be the biggest embarrassment of my life should it turn out to be connected to anything I ever said anywhere!

If you haven't heard the Harlequin flap by now, here's the scoop. Skip to the section break if you know all this.

Harlequin publishers which has grown to own many imprints, some of which you may recognize but not know Harlequin is the company behind them, has felt the pinch all publishers are feeling.

And they have responded by partnering with a vanity publisher.

Vanity = they charge the author to "publish" the book, do no editing, do little or no "promotion" (their idea of promotion is not an author's idea of promotion) and dump some copies on the author. If the book is successful by the efforts of the lone author, they take the lion's share of the profit, or maybe all of it.

Self-publishing means you become a "publisher" doing all the steps, work of several departments, dealing with many companies to assemble components, do all the marketing, do all the publicity, do all the promotion (all different things requiring different sorts of mental acuity and intelligence, plus training and talent), but if successful you keep all the profit (except for taxes which can be complex).

E-publishers are publishers. They do all that stuff except maybe the lion's share of the publicity, and still manage to pay the author a goodly cut of any profit. They're "real" businesses, as is a self-publishing author who actually does it all (or knows who to hire -- Mass Market publishers hire lots of sub-contractors.).

Harlequin recently announced they were entering into a venture with a known vanity publisher. The few clues in their announcement all pointed toward standard vanity publisher rip-off, with the one tiny detail that they "intended" to watch for successful books and offer those authors contracts for a Harlequin colophon bearing edition.

Here's Harlequin's Press Release.
http://press.eharlequin.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=

----------------Section Break-------------

OK, so now that Romance Writers of America, Science Fiction Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, and even EPIC (ebook writers and publishing professionals), and many others have weighed in on this controversy, we should look at it from several different angles.

Here's the SFWA statement:
http://www.sfwa.org/2009/11/sfwa-statement-on-harlequins-self-publishing-imprint/

Here's a bit about the whole flap involving other writer's organizations.

http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/24433

And isn't it interesting that READERS don't have an official organization to post a position white paper on this subject?

Writers and readers need to pay attention because we are in a topsy-turvey revolution in the Fiction Delivery System which is part of the revolution in industry caused by the Web and especially Web 2.0 where customers of all businesses can find and talk to each other directly.

In the pre-Web world, two people in different countries who bought the same brand of canned peaches would never be able to FIND each other, never mind talk about how good or bad those peaches were. Today the web connects users of a product and even translates (sort of - it's getting better).

I am ever so grateful to people who post their experiences with appliances, bed sheets, and other expensive things I buy seldom. User comments are what count for me these days, not advertising.

In today's world, word of toxic peaches would flash around the entire world in 15 seconds because of Twitter. The blogosphere would ignite with warnings, and facebook would be alive with URLs.

I read a blog comment yesterday where someone said, "make one mistake and you're a hashtag on twitter." (a hashtag is written like so on twitter #NewMoon -- that's the hashtag for the Twilight film New Moon, but you also see it as #newmoon and other variants)

Twitter surfaces "trending topics" by searching for keywords in the 140 character posts. If a few hundred people start relaying posts about say, Heinz Peaches, suddenly #HeinzPeaches would become a "hashtag" and within a few minutes probably surface as a trending topic.

People love to talk about the mistakes corporations make, but rarely gossip about the perfect, easy, convenient, no-hassle service they get from a corporation.

Nobody I've found yet has said "do something perfectly and become a hashtag on twitter."

With novels or films, though, it's often the other way around. People chatter incessantly about what they liked, but have little to say about what they didn't like except "it's bad."

So there's been a lot of talk on Amazon Communities and on Goodreads.com about Romances of various flavors. People like their fiction separated by flavor, aroma, mood, color -- all neatly categorized so they spend money only on what they're in the mood for.

Good books get talked about at length and in detail, the characters, backgrounds, backstories, relationships, speculation about their futures.

Books people don't like get "It was bad." "I didn't like it." "This author just doesn't deliver."

The characters don't get analyzed, the background visuals don't get discussed in terms of how they do not explicate the theme, the motivations don't get sliced and diced, the story doesn't even get retold in reviews. All a "reader" knows is that the BOOK is no good, and if they haven't studied writing, they really think the problem is inside the book, or the writer, not in themselves.

Readers who are only readers rarely comment "I just wasn't in the mood for a sappy romance." Or "I got bored by all the action scenes and skipped them - I probably missed something important and that's why the ending made no sense." "It fell flat for me because I was still bummed by being jilted by my boyfriend."

We've studied reader tastes on this blog in some detail. If you're interested in how to account for taste, you might want to read my blog entry:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/7-proofing-steps-for-quality-writing.html

And follow the links in there back to some of the deeper explorations of how to account for the tastes of whole generations of readers.

The more educated a reader is in the art of writing, the more able that reader is to wade into the vast volume of self-published work and pick out the books that will, for her, be superior to anything the traditional publishers can ever produce for Mass Market distribution.

After the "quality" editing run suggested in that last link above has been done by the author and others knowledgeable in the craft, all books are equal.

The only remaining point is "market" -- or whether you as a reader are in need of reading this book.

With experience, a reader may trust an author, or a colophon (because for several years at a stretch a colophon will have been "edited by" the same person) or even a whole publisher like Harlequin to produce more of whatever they liked in the previous book.

Likewise with small publishers, ebook and/or POD publishers. With a few free samples, and a little trust, readers may part with money to read a series that they don't buy in a Brick-n-Mortar store or at Wal-Mart.

This was the theory behind my first non-fiction paperback, STAR TREK LIVES! What is specifically aimed at your taste and mood-of-the-moment will seem to be of "higher quality" than anything aimed at a mass market that only includes you.

And that's why the Star Trek fanzine fiction took off in a blaze of glory that literally changed publishing forever.

Prior to Star Trek fans pouring out millions (maybe billions by now) of words of fan fiction, Science Fiction fanzines carried pretty much only non-fiction -- any fiction was just sendups, short humor, amateurishness for its own sake.

It wasn't Star Trek that changed our world so much, it was fanfic.

Star Trek fanfic started out on two levels at the same time.

Devra Langsam (a professional librarian) and some librarian friends of hers started the first Star Trek fanzine called Spockanalia - focused on the phenomenon they called Spock Shock. That's the impact of the ALIEN on women that produced ALIEN ROMANCE; or more specifically alien sex, infatuation, crushes, etc.

Spockanlia was printed mimeograph on high-acid (cheap) paper that has deteriorated. But the writing was professional level because the editors were librarians and knew from good craftsmanship, because-lines and themes, and foreshadowing and character motivation, as well as the importance of expunging typos.

Just after Spockanalia appeared, some industrious individuals began their own Star Trek fanzines with stories they wrote themselves, often published on spirit duplicator, or even just by typing a few carbon copies in a typewriter and circulating the paper copies. (really! by snailmail!)

Soon though others with wordsmith skills began producing fanzines that they invited authors to contribute to. Then the 'zines began to compete on editing. Before long, the field diversified into 'zines specializing in certain types of stories, and Star Trek 'zine genres emerged complete with names the readers understood.

There was still the occasional self-published 'zine, but even then only teenagers skipped the step of getting the work really edited before offering it for sale. Lack of editing produced scornful reviews and readers shunned the 'zine. Kids lost a lot of money as the editing standards increased.  I know one self-publisher who did novel after novel of her own and each one pristine -- because each got edited by other eyes. 

STAR TREK LIVES! blew the lid on this secret, underground publishing venue and exposed it to newspaper and TV attention, attracting thousands and thousands more writers, editors, publishers of the do-it-yourself generation. The field of 'zines exploded as the word 'zine short for fanzine (coined in SF fandom in the 1940's) became a newspaper term that didn't need explanation each time it was used.

So what has this to do with Harlequin?

Have you figured it out yet? Think hard.

SELF-PUBLISHING is fanzine publishing.

In self-publishing, editing is seen as optional.  From the outside, that is. 

Today, the online posting sites for fanfic demand beta-readers sift the stories before posting for free reading. Some beta-readers rise to the top because they actually edit (why did Stephen bite Rosemary's neck?)

People shun wasting their reading time on un-edited work.

Self-publishing is considered "un-edited" by almost all the professional organizations, so they are stomping on Harlequin for launching a vanity-press.

The new Harlequin Horizons imprint is an imprint for self-publishing authors.

A colophon is the graphic squiggle that labels an imprint. A colophon would be like a Vampire Romance and a stylized V dripping blood, the Imprint would be Stefan's Vampire Romances.

Harlequin said that Horizons won't offer professional editing by their own (rather sharp) editors. Harlequin will point authors rejected by their slush pile readers to the self-publishing operation as a "viable" alternative.

Those are the two points that have all the professional writers' organizations miffed.

Harlequin (nowadays a respected name though it hasn't always been so) is using marketing techniques to the disadvantage of beginning writers who don't know what's being done to them.

Harlequin (as any professional writer's organization knows) stands to make a hefty profit from the new writers (over and over again) because their new Harlequin Horizons imprint will not be geared up to teach these new writers why their work was rejected by Harlequin.

So new writers will continue to make the same anti-commercial "mistakes."

What's the difference between a vanity press and self-publishing?

A vanity press panders to the writer's ego and charges big bucks for the service.

Self-publishing is a job that smashes your ego down into a micro-dot.

SFWA says Harlequin's retraction of the announcement of the name on the new imprint (Harlequin Horizons) isn't enough.

The first uproar was targeted at the idea of putting the rather prestigious name Harlequin on what would be mostly a product that does not meet Harlequin's publishing standards.

So it seems it should be enough to name the venture something else.

But SFWA (rightly, I think) is still shunning the entire concept of a major publisher with known precision standards owning and operating a self-publishing operation that is marketed to their slush pile rejects on a distant promise of "if the book does well, we will consider..."

The writer's organizations discount all efforts made through self-publishing operations, vanity press or hard working self-published authors -- even most epublishers are excluded from qualifying a writer for membership because they don't pay advances against royalties.

Professional writer's organizations sift the publishing world on how the writer gets paid.

It's professional. We do it for a living. People who don't do it for a living aren't qualified to become members. It's an attitude that unites professionals in all fields, and divides them from amateurs and wannabees.

Those who have been in the publishing business since before the Internet became a publishing venue have their understanding of what is actually happening (and why Harlequin decided to launch this venture) conditioned by a vision of the industrial world that is in fact no longer exactly true -- though it may become true again, as we work through this turbulence.

I've talked a lot about the business of publishing in prior posts here. You might want to check:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/marketing-via-social-networking.html

Harlequin made a business decision based on an assessment of where the world is going with book publishing and what they could do to position the company to make a profit in that new world.

The people I knew at the helm of Harlequin years ago are long gone, and I expect their corporate culture legacy is long gone too.

But I see the Harlequin Horizons venture as if it were actually on the because-line of a novel that started at the power-lunch I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

Some trickle-down of the legacy of that lunch discussion, a bit of dust on a wall, a flake of paint here and there, some trace of something may have remained in the air at Harlequin and led somehow to this decision. (I can hope not, of course, because this decision is potentially very harmful to the very people I treasure most - the beginning writers.)

Here's what happened.

One day, I got a phone call from a secretary at Harlequin's Canadian HQ who said her boss (CEO) was going to be in New York (where I lived at the time) and would like to have lunch with me.

Huh? I mean REALLY!

She eventually convinced me it wasn't a hoax, and I made the appointment to meet him in New York at a very expensive, posh, hotel restaurant.

It turned into a six martini lunch for him. I talked his ear off.

Subject of his questions?

You won't believe this.

STAR TREK FANZINES.

That's what he wanted to talk about. And of course, at that time if you started probing Star Trek fan activity from any end of the spectrum, you would end up talking to me on the phone (pre-email).

It seems that the press had convinced this mover and shaker of the publishing industry that women were the market for STAR TREK fanzines and those women were into the exact kind of story that Harlequin published, except with science fiction and aliens emphasized.

You have no idea how bizarre that concept was at the time.

So I spent over 5 hours explaining self-publishing, fanzine publishing, Star Trek publishing, emerging genres, trends, economics of fanzine publishing, content of the stories, target audiences, editing quality, prices readers were willing to pay ($20 for an amount of words Harlequin sold for $2.50 ) to get those particular stories.

This "lunch" lasted so long that we were the last people in the place as they were closing and retooling for dinner.  The staff had prepared all the other tables before one very obsequious manager crept up to softly suggest we might like to leave now.  (what an experience!  I've been thrown out of places coast to coast for being too talkative past closing time.  Politeness was beyond comprehension -- I mean this was New York!)


This CEO asked questions and made comments and comparisons that convinced me he understood what I had said. That was the truly astonishing part. I was actually able to communicate these ideas to someone in a position to take the entire Star Trek fanzine phenomenon to the next level, Science Fiction Romance!!!

Not STAR TREK ROMANCE -- that was owned by Paramount -- but rather the underlying abstract concept of how sexy a smart non-human could be in a story.

I did convince him there was a future for science fiction about romantic relationships (totally insane and ridiculous concept but he believed me).

In fact, another such power lunch conversation resulted, where I was invited to Washington DC (had to take the plane shuttle and the train downtown, then back in the same day) for lunch at a really exclusive club -- the kind of place that's members only; all posh silence and exquisite service once you're through the security.  The drapes in that place cost more than my house. 

I was invited to a place like that in San Francisco, too, a Yacht club.  They don't put a bill on the table when you're done.  It's in the membership fee. 

And that DC "lunch" too became a six martini lunch (not for me; I don't drink much) that left us the only two people in the place as it closed to retool for dinner. But lunch with a CEO that lasts about 6 hours is an experience and a half, especially when the talk really is all business. Lunch with editors isn't quite in the same category as lunch with the boss of the boss of the boss of the editor.  How many writers get to bend the ear of the actual decision makers? 

But nothing ever came of all that talking, that I know of.

I do know that for a while, the person at the helm of Harlequin understood fanzines, self-publishing, fanzine editing, and most importantly how very desperate the readership was for more SFR.

I had such high hopes.

But no.

It never happened. None of the programs he was meditating on ever materialized.  He could see my vision and share it, but there was no way to make it materialize in the Mass Market Publishing world. 

So I forged ahead and wrote the DUSHAU TRILOGY for mass market paperback and it won the first Romantic Times Award for SF, and other such SFR works with the R part disguised as plot driver. (see http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com for free chapters of that and my Hardcover efforts to make this point.)

Now Harlequin Horizons appears out of nowhere.

Vanity Press!!!

Monday, Nov 23rd, one of the Agents I most respect, Agent Kristin, posted the following on her blog:

-------quote---------
Today, Thomas Nelson Publishers joins the Harlequin hoopla in a ridiculous blog post. Ashley and Carolyn Grayson posted their response—to which I whole heartedly agree. I find it laughable that Hyatt believes that agents are speaking out against the ripping off of writers via vanity publishing arms because we see “self-publishing” as a threat.

As many commenters have already noted in my blog comments section, vanity publishing and self publishing are not the same. A distinction that Hyatt does not seem to understand. I suppose he also believes that venerated writing organizations such as RWA, MWA, and SFWA, all of which have a long tradition of helping and protecting writers, are similarly trying to keep the status quo by vehemently speaking out against such blatant ripping off of writers.

I also want to make this distinction.
----------end quote-------------

And there's lots more she has to say. See Agent Kristin's post for the links inserted in the above quote:
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2009/11/horizons-is-not-remotely-like-harper.html

I really hope there's no connection with me because this is about the opposite of what I was saying to that CEO about the potential for SFR. But this is the very first time since then that Harlequin has made a business move even remotely flavored with that conversation's content. 

I'm not sure I'm flat out against Harlequin Horizons (just against the proposed method of doing business).

If the operation is smooth and high quality ( Vanity presses are famous for not-being high quality!), it's possible Harlequin Horizons might take us the next step beyond the tizzy publishing is in right now.

What I envision is packagers. Independent editors who select and edit novels in a specific narrow category, then when the novels are at the highest quality level, though aimed at some specialty audience, the packager uses an outfit like Harlequin Horizons to publish the work with the packager's colophon (not Harlequin Horizon's colophon).  The packager's colophon would then become trusted by readers.

Readers are the key element being ignored here.

All the professional writers organizations have spoken.  Where are the readers?  

A trusted colophon could become acknowledged by writers' organizations like SFWA, RWA, MWA, EPIC, etc. It could qualify the work for award consideration and as a membership qualification, in a defined category.

But I suspect long before that could happen, we will have a series of Awards created by various organizations for works in these nooks and crannies of reader taste. We already have the very respected EPPIES (which have been renamed) which have so many categories I can't count them.

As Alvin Toffler pointed out in his book Future Shock, the computer revolution, the information age, allows for customization of products that the industrial revolution handled as Mass Market.

The days of the mass market may be numbered.

The inflection point in history where that numbering may have begun would be the 1970's explosion of Star Trek fanzines that has continued into e-publishing on the web and overflowed into the universes of every other TV show you can think of (SF TV led the way, but today it's everywhere).  

But economies of scale have not yet hit the niche markets.

It's still too expensive to self-publish, e-publishers are struggling with narrow margins, and the only solution business school graduates know is to reach a wider market.

But art aimed at a wider market leaves the various narrow markets luke-warm rather than ignited in passion for more-more-more at any price, as Star Trek Fanzines did.

We might view Harlequin's move to vanity or subsidy press as an act of desperation as their mass market readership evaporates beneath them, and they need another source of revenue so they're setting up to fleece beginning writers who don't know that they don't know what they need to know.  

Publishers have to learn that the future of the fiction delivery system lies in the micro-market not the mass-market.

Or am I wrong? What am I missing here? 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com