You have to be willing to take risks in this business of ours. Calculated risks that are nonetheless precarious for the careful thought you put into jumping off whatever cliff of opportunity looms before you. Sometimes a marvelous parachute glide awaits you, easing you into your next step forward. Sometimes there turn out to be holes in your plan and you land in the trees–if you’re lucky. Sometimes you crash and burn completely. My experience with Dorchester Publishing these last few years, like many authors, has been more the latter. But as of last week I can officially say it hasn’t been a crash and burn fiasco, and the trees that were grabbing at my chute are receding farther and farther away each time I look back. Perspective?One might call it that, this ah-ha sensation filling me. Hind sight gives us the illusion of finally seeing things as they were always meant to be. Maybe it’s just dumb luck… You be the judge.
Too often it feels as if I have absolutely NO idea how I got to this moment of deep sighing and appreciation for a journey well traveled and a fight bravely faced and won (Amazon, the publisher who also recently signed a three book deal with me to publish a women’s fiction/contemporary romance series has bought out Dorchester’s list at auction and will not only pay me royalties due from the last three years, but will re-list and potentially buy new titles into my sci-fi/fantasy series).
To be honest, I have some idea. But my mind’s still spinning as I process the twists and turns and decisions and retreats–stopping myself, ultimately, from making several end-game decisions that would have ended this wild ride before I achieved what I’d set out to. What follows is the CliffsNotes version of that adventure, because publishing can be a sucky journey for all of us and I’m happy to share my personal suckage if it might possibly help others finding themselves in their own potentially no-win situations, trying to choose the least objectionable of the unsatisfying options before them.
But first, let’s identify what exactly I wanted to achieve from the start.Because the best business decisions are potentially bad business decisions, regardless of the odds in your favor, if you don’t understand your goal. My best advice to anyone when they ask me my opinion of what they should do about a book, agent, publisher or contract is to figure out what you want and determine the best way to achieve that. Beyond that, I got nothing. Because as you’ll see below, the rules are always changing and what works for me or someone else now may be a no-win choice for you tomorrow. You have to be flexible in this business. You have to dodge and duck and know when to jump or stand still. None of which you can do effectively if you aren’t sure where you’re headed.
My goal with my sci-fi/fantasy series: To establish my mainstream fiction work and to build a series for a broader audience than my contemporary romance roots, into which I could continue to sell future novels. Simple right?
Let’s take a closer look, shall we?
Round about the fall of 2008: Dorchester offers a 2-book deal for my Legacy Series. Dark Legacy to release nationwide in mass market paperback in the fall of 2009.
I deliver the book on time, but the advance money isn’t coming from the publisher as quickly as it should. Agent pushes hard behind the scenes, but we don’t pull the book from the schedule. It’s more important to my goal to be established as a mainstream author with bigger stories to sell than my category romance roots, than it is to join in the shrieks of dissatisfaction with the publisher beginning to rumble all over the Internet.
Fall, 2009: Dark Legacy in stores, positioned well, I’m signing in the B&N flagship store in New York’s Lincoln Center, and we’re off. Sales are good but nothing fabulous. We can do better, publisher says. My series is repositioned away from traditional romance and closer to the sci-fi/thriller market it’s better suited for.
Secret Legacy due to editor in early 2010 for a rushed summer 2010 release because they want to break it out. They’re behind this very different, edgy thing I’m doing with my mainstream work 110%. They’ve also by now paid me the advance I’m owed to date. Agent and I see this as a good chance to shine within a smaller traditional press, so I keep working.
Health issues and surgery prevent me from turning the second book in on time. Editor and publisher couldn’t have been more understanding. Deadline for delivering Secret Legacy is pushed to the spring of 2010, with a fall release. It’s the hardest writing period I’ve ever had, and I called my agent to quit more than once, but the book was finished and revised in a gruelingly short amount of time. If nothing else, this experience proved to me that I had to keep writing–if for no other reason than I couldn’t seem to make myself stop.
Fall 2010: Serious money spent on my part and committed by publisher to promote the book that should break out, even though remaining advance for the second book on the contract hasn’t yet been paid. However, lots of publisher plans–print and digital promotion. Extensive online blog tour being set up. Again, agent and I are staying focused on the publishing possibilities and my investing in my mainstream future, which means I continue to do my job and play nice while she rattles their cages fighting to get me the money owed.
Two weeks before Secret Legacy’s launch: it’s announced on the Internet (not to individual authors) that overnight Dorchester’s pulling their print publishing arm (meaning all my mass market print books are being yanked, never to be distributed retail) and beginning immediately to shift to a digital first/print on demand business. My break out release: not going to happen. My sizable investment in promoting to mass market retailers and readers: wasted. My remaining faith in publisher: destroyed.
What new facet of the publishing business will you conquer this year? With all the changes rushing at us, what’s your greatest fear? How can you turn that perceived weakness into an asset? Small press or indie digital publishing has long been my wishy-washy place.
Yes, I can publishing solo, but do I want to? Yes, there are small indie digital presses out there, but do I trust their ever-evolving business models. In the end, I realized the real question was: Do I trust myself, without the umbrella of a large, established publisher propping up both me and my work?
I love my traditional publishers and hope to always have a home in print. I respect most of the inroads these huge corporations are making into digital media, too, though the changes they’re enacting have been slow to come and even slower to implement. Which has left a huge opportunity open for me to make a digital impact with my writing without them… But until lately I’ve been too hesitant to investigate those options on my own.
Where will I be without a major press behind me?
Will anyone notice if I go out on my own?
Will my publisher/agent be less enthusiastic about my work, if I’m also self/indie publishing in the digital market?
Will I be wasting a lot of time I should be spending writing, by taking on even more “other” business beyond the hours I need to focus each day on my creative pursuits?
Hard questions, all of them. And each question sprung from a core fear of the change happening all around me. Because the reality is, the playing field of publshing that I thought I’d conquered when I signed my first traditional book contract is gone. A new world with exciting new opportunities and scary pitfalls has arrived. I can’t fly beneath the radar and expect folks to find me, because I have THIS publisher or THAT one backing me.
In this publishing world, a writer is either a brand/entity unto herself, or she won’t be found, period.
Traditional publishers expect us to do all the things we have to do to be successful as self/indie published authors.
Branding is essential to a book’s success now, regardless of how it was published.
I’ve been asked to HoWW blog more about putting the writing first…even when we’re being told (and seeing) EVERYthing else in the business is more important. Especially the insanity we call social media (yesterday’s topic, where I ranted about writing first, because who knows what’s really making a difference on Facebook and Twitter anyway, no matter what the “experts” say).
It’s funny, when you think about it. Blogging about not blogging or tweeting or FB statusing so much that you never groove on your craft. Your art. Your purpose to begin with for dipping your toe in the Internet mustof “connecting.” We try to carve out niche in this great beyond. #weWRITE is a great example, which Jen Talty and I started after a few months of HoWW blog posts, to get writers talking about writing alone on Twitter, not just pimping their books or blogs or promo platforms.
We work to be relevant and plugged in and visible. But why? To support our writing, yes. But we do that best BY writing. To support our career? Better. But many of the folks doing the social media thing most fervently don’t have creative writing careers yet. They’re following the advice of social medial gurus telling them that building a following and pseudo platform (before there’s anything to sell from said stage) is more important to publishers these days than the product of the hard, daily, grinding writing work they’ve yet to do long enough to publish. To connect? That’s more to the point, I think.
We write alone, as I said yesterday, most of the time. And social media is a great way to connect with other writers, those we admire in the business, and, yes, those we trust to advise us about our journey. But it’s the massive scope of that very content we’re daily struglling to take in that, in my opinion, begins to overtake the writing itself, unless we’re very careful.
Because here’s the thing for me–anyone, ANYone, telling you to spend any significant portion of your day doing anything BUT writing, is doing damage to your chances of publishing. (more…)
RWA National’s and the Thrillerfest workshop grids were amazing this year. So much variety, you couldn’t keep up. Amazing depth. Still, on nearly every panel one topic reigned. Social Media. Almost like it’s more important now than the writing and the books. How do publishers use it? How do they want their authors to use it? How do wannabe authors and publishers need to use it? You don’t use it??? What’s WRONG WITH YOU!
And no, I’m not exaggerating. I’m not just talking about the panels focusing specifically on the use of social medial for book promotion, though Shelia Clover English’s panel at Thrillerfestwas absolutely the best of the bunch. Check her out. Download her talk, whenever they make the audio available on the TFest website. Get on board the train to your future…
When I say social media’s taking over, what I mean is that everyone was talking about it, in practically every workshop, panel, and meeting I attended the last two weeks. As I said yesterday, no one knows for sure what’s happening to the publishing industry, but EVERYone seems to think that the old way of promoting and reaching readers is evolving into something else, no one’s really sure what, involving social media.
Publishing Isn’t for Sissiesis one of my most popular blog threads. Two weeks away in NY, both at RWA Nationals and Thrillerfest, and everywhere I turned writers asked me to post more. So, first day back, what am I prattling about–What is New York publishing looking like/for?
Interestingly enough, I’m not sure anyone at either conference had a definitive answer.
There was lots of talk about new digital offerings, for example from Harlequin (Carina Press) and Harper Collins/Avon (Impulse). The major houses are very aware that the digital future of publishing is now, even though they’re still not ready to pay authors an advance for dipping their toes into “traditional” experiments into the medium.
At the Avon spotlight,the editors were talking about quick turn around and prolific authors and getting excited about how quickly they could get your content up on their websites. Lots of assurances that you’d get great editing and covers and face time on a publisher site they say has heavy traffic, plus the books will be out there on Amazon, etc. But with so many titles going out the door, and the covers they were raving about honestly looked like something my teen could photoshop on his laptop, and talk of fast writing and editorial and revisions that sounds pretty close to flash fiction at times, you have to wonder how anything but their lead authors’ books will get enough attention to sell well.
They do have a great plan for using the digital publishing of novellas and such to promo mass market paperback releases of the star authors. Those ebooks should get promoted out the ying yang, and it should help both the digital and print sales of the corresponding mass market releases. But the rest of the books, it seems, will pretty much be on their own.
Let me do the math for you, if this is the case. No advance. No heavy online promotion. No digital sales to speak of. No money.(more…)
Dorchester’s abrupt shift from a mass market publishing model to focusing on digital and trade paperback releases has been dissected and discussed and bandied about for kicks and giggles by just about everyone. Mostly by folks not involved in the ongoing change. But was it so abrupt? Was it Dorchester’s choice alone? Was the story really simple enough to be covered in a tweet or a Facebook update?
The emotions running high then and now were real enough. The circumstances weren’t great for anyone involved, either before Dorchester’s move or since. The publishing industry itself, never a source of enduring security for most who challenge it, was has been in a very public tailspin for the last few years.
Exactly how much of Dorchester’s move was about one publishing house’s floundering dynamic? How much of it was industry trends playing out on a small enough stage for us to dissect every bit of it and hopefully learn something new?
From the start, I wanted Publishing Isn’t for Sissies to be about seeing the bigger picture. There’s a larger story here. Every publisher and author is playing it out, in various arenas, trying to find their place in what we’re all about to become. I applaud the brave approach Vice President Tim DeYoung and the rest of Dorchester’s staff are taking to innovate and pioneer an uncharted path they’re determined to make work for their authors.
To see a bit more of that bigger picture for yourself, spend a few minutes looking at our publishing world through Tim’s eyes…
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Some people have asked me why Dorchester turned from mass market centric publishing to a digital and trade model. The response to this question involves an understanding of the marketplace and the changes within.
I don’t think anyone will disagree with the statement that the biggest trend in the publishing industry is the extraordinary growth of the e-book. Articles, blogs, and editorials are everywhere you turn, trumpeting the demise of print. There is no question that e-books seem to be the future, what with all the new platforms springing up, some that feature interactive participation or even the use of color. Still, even with the fantastic growth in the last couple of years, e-book sales are far overshadowed by the sales of physical books.
Several years ago, the wholesale marketplace started going through very real upheaval. (more…)
Dorchester Publshing’s gotten a lot of press in the seven months that I’ve waited for Secret Legacy to release. The Dorchester staff has made some tough choices about their business, as have I. PIFS has been about the story behind the drama playing out on social media’s myopic stage. Tough realities and decisions must be faced once emotions cool. I wanted this to be a place where we could share experiences and take those next steps together.
Our industry is a lightening-fast spiral of change at the moment. We’ve talked here about challenging things. We’ve kept things honest but positive and forward-thinking. We’ve already heard from a PR professional and an industry-leading agent. Now let’s dig a little deeper.
My personal impression observing Dorchester Senior Editor Chris Keeslar in my six years as a published author is that he’s widely respected by professionals in every corner of our industry.
Every author I know who’s worked with him loves how much he loves working with story and the minds that craft it. With Dorchester’s shift in publishing model, I suspect Chris is more involved than ever with the management of getting books to market. But reading his thoughts below, it’s clear that story and nurturing an author’s voice and career are still Chris’ ultimate focus.
He’s put a public face on each issue Dorchester has encountered. He’s handled these complex situations as best he could as quickly as he could, providing whatever information and action and answers were needed. I can’t imagine the journey’s been any easier for him than the authors he continues to champion. But he’s never publicly reacted in anger or frustration. I find it inspirational, his brand of integrity and optimism in the face of these challenges.
I’m thrilled that Chris is sharing his thoughts with us today on how a traditional publisher can help a digitally published author…
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“I’ve been thinking about the changing landscape of publishing recently. Here’s what I’ve decided:(more…)
Secret Legacy is finally here! I can honestly say that no other book has captured so much of my fascination and imagination. Those of who who’ve been following the blog for a while know this truly has become the book of my heart in so many meaningful ways.
Check out all the cool stuff that’s happening. Help me celebrate! There’s something for everyone.
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Dark Legacy, Book 1 in the Legacy series, is a FREE EBOOK May 2nd – May 9th. Grab your copy of the digital download. Begin the psychic fantasy journey from the very beginning, at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders and Diesel Books. Then look for the .99 cent promotion from May 9th – May 23rd, and the $2.99 promotion from May 23rd-June 6th.
So many exciting things are coming in May for my sci-fi/fantasy Secret Legacy release,most of which I’m partnering with the amazing associates at Dorchester to make happen:
Look for exciting FREE DOWNLOAD offers for Dark Legacy on sites like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders and Deisel books from May 2nd – May 9th. From May 9th – May 23rd, Dark Legacy will be a .99 cent download, then 2.99 through June 6th. All to, as you might suspect,build momentum and interest in Book 2 in my psychic fantasy series, Secret Legacy.
Guest blogs and giveaways at cool siteslike Night Owl Scifi, Dreams and Speculation, ScifiGuy, etc.
Features in ITW’s Big Thrill newsletter and other places like a May spotlight and Free Friday Download on Barnes and Noble’s Unbound blog.
Cool Author Interview and Cover Story book book trailers coming from Circle of Seven, complete with great bonus discount offers from Dorchester.
And more…
All of which is the kind of promo being done all over the place by authors hoping to plug into the viral marketing that makes Internet buzz happen. But having my Dorchester team behind me and Secret Legacy in a powerful way has opened so many more doors than I could have myself.
It occurred to me as I started the PIFS blog series that not all the majority of the talk about Dorchester switch (and, through them, mine) from a traditional mass market publishing model was coming from people who weren’t immediately involved in the situation. Not that bystanders’ viewpoints aren’t valid. But it struck me at the time, as it does now, that there’s a lot of talk about what hadhappened and how the facts as those outside the immediate crisis saw it, meant doom for Dorchester authors and others who were about to be trampled under the digital publishing wave. There’s very little insight coming from within the trenches, from the perspective of authors that all this is happening to–those of us making difficult choices and deciding to trust the Dorchsterteam still working hard behind the scenes to make the best possible solution emerge from some unfortunate circumstances for everyone.
I’ve talked at lenth in past PIFS posts about my viewpoint then and now (as I watch Secret Legacy’s release fast approaching). I won’t repeat myself, except to say that last fall, when Dorchester’s announcement surprised everyone, I was in the middle of a two-book contract for an ongoing series, and my decision wasn’t as straight forward as others. I could have gotten the rights back to my unpublished novel (Secret Legacy), but Dark Legacy had been released the previous year and sold well. Dorchester had done their job with it, as they continued to assure me they would with Secret Legacy, and therefore would retain rights to that story. Which meant I couldn’t take the entire series elsewhere looking for a home, or even build momentum as a self-published author as some have, by offering both books to readers on my own. Also, I know a great number of self or indie published authors who regularly share the wealth of their hard-earned experience, and I knew the daunting task of self publishing and promoting a novel across various platforms and to hard-to-target audiences isn’t the slam-dunk many would like you to believe it is when you strike out completely on your own.
And then there were the professionals at Dorchester, communicating regularly with my agent and myself about their ongoing plans for their business and my books. Brainstorming with me. Partnering with me on ideas for how best to target traditional, digital and indie markets with my series.Agreeing to move my release date out until we had a firm release and promotion plan in hand. Making themselves available whenever I had questions, even to this day. And, yes, paying me for the work I’ve done, as they’re contractually required to do. Just in case there’s any confusion, I’ve been paid what I’m owed for both my novels. Those who demand that you believe no one who’s worked with Dorchester has received any money for years, for whatever reason those persons feel it necessary to want you to believe that sort of thing, aren’t talking from my experience or that of other Dorchester authors I know personally. We’re not stupid, those of us who have trusted our publishing team to the best job they can for our books. We’re just finding a way to continue to do our jobs and build our careers amidst trying circumstances for both us and our publisher.
It’s in Dorchester’s best interest, as it is mine, for Secret Legacy to do as well as possible. We all want it to hit the sci-fi/fantasy market hard and sell, sell sell. We’re all working our butts off to make that happen. Together. I am constantly amazed by the creativity and ingenuity of everyone I’m on this ride with. And as one of the writers in the trenches, involved in implementing this new “hybrid” publishing model with a novel I’m more personally attached to than anything else I’ve written, I excited to share that journey through Publishing Isn’t for Sissies. So are the Dorchester associates and staff that I’ve been working so closely with.
Hannah Wolfson has already shared some of the details behind Dorchester’s NetGalley partnership and what Secret Legacy’s feature there might mean for promoting the release.
I have five more great Dorchester guest posts scheduled for May and early June.(more…)
Modern authors must promote. Even the top dogs. But what if you’re a writer who cringes at the thought of sell, sell, selling yourself to your audience? Suck it up, TPTBs say. And, well, they’re mostly right. Mostly. Because not everyone will promote effectively the same way. And too much of the advice we hear these days is that THIS or THAT are the only ways to really entice more potential readers to give your stories a try.
Bull.
Don’t drink the Kool-Aide.
Yes, a writer’s business must include a healthy dose of consistent promotion planning an execution. And unless you’re one of the lucky few “branded” authors out there, what you affectionately refer to as your PR Department will be comprised primarily of you and you alone.
But, where I see most hard-working, business savvy writers flounder (myself included) is when they attempt to force themselves into a promotion mold that doesn’t fit their personality, strengths, writing genre and time/lifestyle demands. We’re not all natural sales or marketing persons.We don’t all have time to travel or the gifts of public speaking. Some of us cringe when confronted with crowds, can’t introduce ourselves to strangers without breaking out in hives, and don’t have a knack for the quick and prolific writing schedule demanded of a daily blogger.
So what do we do, when we’re told that one or more of of these missing traits are THE ONLY WAY WE’LL BE SUCCESSFUL as a modern writer?
First of all, we remind ourselves that it’s the quality of the story and our passion for what we’re writing that’s most important. Ignore the PR/Marketing guru that tells you to promote first, write second. If you don’t believe your story is the best it can be, if you don’t absolutely love what you’ve done and if you’re not prouder of it than anything else you’ve ever written, how the hell are you going to honestly, authentically promote it to readers? Do the work first. Do it well. Protect the writing.
Second, we take inventory of what we do well, or more importantly what we DON’T do well. Me? I don’t hand sell. (more…)
