Your Girl, Friday(s)

So here we are. In this new awesome Age of Re-Enlightenment. A renaissance of renewal. And all sorts of other descriptive metaphors for how far we’ve come. Things are indeedy changing, and every day Publisher’s Weekly reminds us how fast.

I haven’t been in the publishing business as long as some others out there. In 2006 it all started when I began working with a small epublishing company. I met my future business partner, and we decided to open up our own small publishing company. And boy, was that the craziest most educational time for me to learn how the industry works.

When you’re on the outside as a casual reader, you don’t know what a query letter is or how important word count is. You don’t think about which editor just sold, or who acquired what, or the name of the publishing company. Not even the fact that such and such author just won the Rita or Hugo award. Or USA Today best seller list. You just know this book sounds awesome based on the back of the book, and dang, if that’s not a kickin’ cover.

When I was young, my family and I made trips to the library and bookstores and I would browse in all the different fiction sections and whatever popped out to me, I looked into it. Sometimes I went home with duds. Sometimes I came home with some gems I still remember to this day. It was one of the most fun parts of growing up.

I’m a bit sad that experience is in the past now. Not only because the whole fourth wall of book browsing and reading is completely shot by what I know behind the scenes, but also because of most of what I know in how those books got to be in that store. Running the business with my partner, I got to know a lot of the publishing industry’s bias against the smaller guy. We ran into lots of closed doors when we mentioned the dreaded three letters. P.O.D.

You would think we said we were carrying the plague or something.

A fabulous author friend of mine who has been beating down NYC’s door for a while, trusted us enough to publish her wonderful Sci-Fi romance. And I mean this story was seriously awesome. I really wished we had more resources to really get it out there. But unfortunately we weren’t big enough, nor did we have the manpower to make it happen. I came across a lot of that with our authors. They were some very talented folks and I was frustrated that we couldn’t get those good stories into the hands of more readers.

Later on I also got to release a few of my works and I was right there on the ground floor running with everyone. It was crazy out there marketing yourself and other writers, helping them spread the word to blog reviewers and readers. Some received it well and others not so much. But I learned the process of marketing and of how bookstore politics really worked.

One of the true winners came when one of our authors had shared her story about how her and her husband were actively creating and trying to release their romance magazine. They received a lot of criticism for not having prestige and daring to go indie. I took my hat off to them because they just did it for the passion of the arts.

One thing that warmed my heart was that this was a complete group effort with the whole family pitching in to create the magazine, print it, and get it out. Not to mention the support they gave each other with writing and releasing books. But all because they didn’t have a “Big Name” behind it, they were turned away. Same thing with the author mentioned above when she tried to sell her books in stores but was told they don’t deal with those kind of books.

I was already used to the status quo paying me no mind. Spiffy. I could just write how I wanted, experiment, and try to get my foot in the door located ten feet away from the gatekeepers whose favorite words were: “You have a great voice but I don’t think I’m the right person to represent it.” Or my personal favorite: “Not quite right for us”.

Spiffy. I’d just keep writing and find someone who it was right for.

During the course of all this I’ve seen epublishers open then close. Scandals rise and fall within the romance community regarding who’s a real publisher, who’s a fakey, publishers getting grilled on message boards before they come out the gate, author wars ripping each other’s manuscripts to shreds and allegedly doing so out of love. It was madness! I went to my father during these many times (who is also a writer.) And he told me what really matters is getting your work to the reader. All these little in-betweens are just distractions. Writers write to be read.

I started thinking about his words as I began to study the publishing industry more as a freelance publishing industry analyst. Hehe. (Unofficial term.) I studied it closely to try and find trends. See what wins awards. See who rises on the new author lists and why they reach bestsellers within months of their release.

It was then I realized a few things. This industry is very incestuous. Like most…okay ALL entertainment, it’s about who you know. The friends you keep and all that. Not to mention small. And boy do people talk. If the general public cared about author gossip, I’m pretty sure we’d have our own rags. Well, other than Gawker (which is like crack to me, seriously), NY Mag, and certain big name romance reader blogs I shan’t name (but have fabulous industry news).

The other thing I realized was, to quote William Goldman in a similar industry, “Nobody knows anything“.  Surely he jests? There’s calculated maneuvers for knowing which books make bestsellers and which ones don’t . . . right?

I mean there are some serious number crunching head honchos checking and rechecking to see what the public is reading and getting those books straight to them . . . right?

Er, no?

Well, hmm. Well what HAVE you guys been doing all that time?

Suddenly that remainder discount bin didn’t look so hot once I learned the story behind why they’re there.

Then I came across blogs. People were out there talking, sharing their stories and insights while at the same time book critics were degrading “the amateur reviewers” (I guess authors aren’t the only ones seen as punching bags by the ‘big names’ :-/).

One of my later revelations came in the form of author Michael Stackpole and the Dragon Page Podcast (warning: addicting). Here’s a guy who had his start right there in the mouth of NYC, writing, making a living at it! This was the post that laid it all out. It’s worth a listen because it pulls the veil down and reveals the publishing industry, warts and all from someone who’s been right there in the thick of it.

This was when I realized this industry is highly subjective. You have to work to impress each level from agents to editors to finally readers. Sometimes even your fellow authors. There’s a lot of politics and what it all comes down to is:

You gotta do what’s best for you.

It doesn’t matter what Author A did to get their contract. Sure check it out, see what she did. But don’t get mad if she knew someone in the biz or captured a star agent on her 8th try, then found a NYC editor and sold in a matter of months. Look at it, learn from it, and move on. What worked for her may not be what works for you.

I’ve seen so many authors blindly follow people who think they have the answer to getting the ultimate writing career. It’s not that cut and dry, and frankly it depends on one’s own personal goals and what they want to achieve through their writing.

We have to look at this realistically, especially now that the industry is going through some major changes. For me, I like working with small presses as well as indie. That works for me. I especially like to work with a company where I feel like we’re in a partnership. I also like knowing that I have a others in my group who know when the good ads are coming or chat opportunities and upcoming get togethers.

At the same time I like that freedom to just release a novella or a short story directly to readers to get them interested in my work sans deadlines and waits. Readers discover me, I get to share my work and, from the other authors that do this, I get to know some authors I may never have come across before. And being a voracious reader, that’s the new way adult me finds some gems like I used to as a kid at the stores. It doesn’t even matter what the format is (no DRM preferred, if its E).

I think, like MoJo said, the wall seems to be coming down regarding biases against indies and epublishing. More writers are seeing that they have choices now regarding getting their work out there, and it’s in their control. The word platform is a big thing going around. A lot of authors are connecting on groups, blogs, and other places making friends and building up readers for their work who will definitely buy their new releases.

One interesting sign of things changing is Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon and Schuster, talking about the upcoming bumps in the road of publishing. Concerns she sighted were “retailers competing with publishers, low barriers to self-publishing, and the economics of digital publishing that appear to bring in less revenue.”

That may seem like something to fear, but I think it’s a matter of that wall coming down. Not to mention that although digital publishing appears to bring in less, this is a part of the industry that rose 77% just a few months ago, and I’ve heard more than one epubbed author say that they’ve made a pretty penny on their epubbed work. Of course it depends on the genre, but there it is.

A writing blog once said that the publishing industry was pushed to be mass marketed big business when it isn’t in the first place. Now that we have competitive media fighting for the reader’s time, it’s time to get our work in the hands of those readers waiting with their hands out. They still love books and are more than happy to check out your work to add to their TBR piles of doom.

So, there it is. A longstanding model is literally collapsing before our eyes, but underneath all of that things are changing. We writers will still write. It’s in our blood. Who knows what the future will bring? But this is new media. We can create illustrated versions of our books in web comics direct from our site. Or do podcasts with audio narratives of our short stories and chapters. Even soundtracks and sheet music available on the book site to present the mood of your work. Think about the goodies your readers will want so they can immerse themselves in the worlds that you’ve created.  Publishing in the new media is limited only by our imagination.

In the meantime, I’ll keep connecting with my readers because they are the backbone of the industry, as well as my fellow authors, editors, and book lovers. Like Stackpole said: “Good writing and good storytelling is still the soul of what goes on”. It’s the dawn of a new publishing age.