The Great Amazon KDP Select Experiment

I'm doing a bit of an experiment.  What's new, really?  Separate Worlds has always been a bit of experimental fun.  It's told from two perspectives, it's a novella in a world of novels, and I threw it to the wolves in an attempt to learn the brave new world of self-publishing.  In that regard, I already consider it a success.  It's hardly a bestseller, hardly selling well at all.  After all, exposure is everything; just ask Snooki.  At least my book's coherent.  But I feel I learned more than if I'd taken the money it cost to publish it and spent it on a college course on self-publication.

And it's still a learning experience, still teaching me things about the business that I'll use, no matter if I self-publish again or not.  There are so many things to be learned about this business, and pecking out words in solitary hardly scratches the surface.

Marketing is one aspect many authors lack experience and expertise in.  It's not their forté; slinging words onto the page and conjuring images in readers' minds are.  But in spite of that - and more and more in today's publishing age - they have to learn it.

And that's where programs like Amazon's KDP Select come in.  Foremost, it's a marketing ploy by Amazon, a way to gather more attention to their products and sell them.  If you're an author, with books available for purchase online, that means it's your marketing ploy as well.

Essentially, when an author enrolls a book in the program, they allow Amazon to lend it to Amazon Prime members for free, while making a small percentage of the monthly fund allocated for it.  Using numbers from their FAQ page - not mine; I wish I had such numbers - we see that:

"... if the monthly fund amount is $500,000, the total qualified borrows of all participating KDP titles is 300,000, and if your book was borrowed 1,500 times, you will earn 0.5% (1,500/300,000 = 0.5%), or $2,500 for that month."

Now, it would be fantastic, downright amazing to reach numbers even close to that, but I'm going to assume the book won't be nearly that popular.  Its success is bound by the number of people who see it and choose to borrow it, and there we come back to that pesky exposure thing.  It will be an interesting experiment, though, and at worst it will offer my book for free to a large number of readers, who will hopefully find a great little story, a great escape from this world through a portal into another, at least for a while.

It's exclusively on Amazon for the duration of this program, as exclusivity to the Kindle is one of the stipulations of the program.  Enjoy, spread the word, share it with friends.  In fact, please consider writing a review on it. You can also spread the word by tweeting or sharing the following blurb:

Separate Worlds, by Jonathan Dalar. When worlds collide, perspective can mean the difference between life and death: http://goo.gl/fb/ohzLf

Hopefully I'll have some positive results to pass along in a few months.

Query Hell

Back to the obligatory pit of author despair known as Query Hell.  In other words, everything is back to normal.

Except for me, it's not really all that hellish anymore.  I've done it too long.  I've been at this game, off and on, for the better part of several decades.  To put it in perspective, when I submitted my very first short story to a magazine, skinny ties, pastels, and leg warmers were in style - everybody wanted to look like they'd come straight off Miami Vice.  The publishing world looked much different than it does today, mainly because of the online accessibility of information to authors.

Back in the day, I'd get out my well-worn Writer's Market guide and pour over it 'til I was half blind.  After compiling a number of submission-worthy candidates, I'd carefully print out the material I'd polished and crafted, stick it carefully inside a Manila envelope with an S.A.S.E., and take my submissions down to the post office.  Then I'd go back to writing, and one by one, the rejections would trickle in.  It was always an adventure getting the mail, wondering if that would be the day I'd find an actual acceptance.  I usually didn't, and became quite calloused to getting rejections.  I filed 'em all away, collecting them like trophies, keeping the giant stack like some badge of honor.  I figure I have well in excess of a couple hundred now.  I did get an acceptance finally, got the galleys and everything.  And then nothing.  Don't know if the magazine abruptly folded or what, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Of course, there were times, jetting around the world courtesy of Uncle Sam, that this just wasn't possible.  It's hard to mail submissions out and collect rejection slips if you're not home.  Long hiatuses from the submissions game have been pretty much the norm.

And things have gotten much easier with the advent of e-mail submissions.  A whole lot easier!  I never query via regular mail now.  I have no reason to.  Yes, there are still agents out there who do not accept e-queries, but at this point in time, wouldn't you be a little hesitant of an agent who hasn't caught up with technology enough to operate that way?  Hell, a lot of agents accept only e-queries.

It's far easier, too.  There's tons of information on agents out there.  What they're looking for, how to query them, what to include, pretty much anything an author would want to know.  It's a lot quicker, too.  No complicated envelope, S.A.S.E., trip to the post office, and waiting on the postman.  Just zip it off and watch your e-mail.  You already do anyway.  Now there's more time for writing.

Except that there's not.  That time has been replaced by blogging, and tweeting, and all the other endless forms of social media out there.  Most agents want an author to have a good online presence.  They want to see the author is engaged himself, has worked to market himself as much as possible already.  It makes their job all that much easier.

Looking back, things haven't gotten any easier, but I've gotten better at it.  The one thing that jumps out at me right away is how much better I understand the publishing industry.  Publishing Separate Worlds was a tremendous learning exercise for me.  This blog has been too, especially with all the research I've put into the Literary Agents tab and sidebar.  I know better how to find what I'm looking for, and how to write better what they're looking for.

So it's back to the trenches for now, writing, editing, pouring over submission guidelines and then trying not to mix 'em up with I send the queries out.  It's still frustrating at times, but I've gotten as jaded to rejections as literary agents are to bad queries, so it's all cool.  And hey, it's not personal, it's the way things are.

Separate Worlds

Atlantis and Earth have encountered one another before, so long ago that neither retains more than faded legends from the event. Now the rift between them has opened again. A collision is inevitable.

For the crew of the Olive Branch, the mission is a venture into never-before-charted territory. Theirs is a voyage to finally connect with intelligent life in space.

For the Atlanteans, the rift brings the actualization of something thought inconceivable - an alien invasion.

The possibilities for bridging the two worlds are virtually endless, but fate has a way of choosing its own outcome. Will harmony result, or will Earth and Atlantis be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past?

Separate Worlds is an 11,000-word novella.


It's finished, folks!  After long last, and more time and painstaking work than I'd like to admit, it's done, and the House of Dalar is ready for a release party.  Champagne is in order tonight.  But before that, my sincere gratitude goes out to several people, without whom this story would not be nearly what it is.

First, I'd like to mention my graphic design artist, Todd Bréda.  He took my random thoughts and ideas and crafted them into a beautiful cover, which very aptly conveys the concepts and feel of the story.  He was also a pleasure to work with, and things went rather quickly once he got the idea of what I wanted for my cover art.  I've heard nothing but praise for the cover art.  Thank you, Todd!

The second person that deserves many thanks is my editor, Karin Cox.  She not only took on the extra workload during an especially hectic time, she not only provided excellent editorial advice and corrections, but did so more quickly than expected.  She also commented on some structural areas in the story, pointing out that the story would be better if I'd flesh them out a bit more.  And she was right - I'm far happier with the result now than I would have been without those edits.  Thank you, Karin!

I'd like to thank David Gaughran, whose blog (and advice) I found extremely helpful.  He's really been a pioneer in the self-publishing world, cutting through some of the stigma and misconceptions, and setting the record straight on a number of different areas.  He's also made it very easy to understand the process, and learn what's really necessary to produce a quality e-book that separates itself from the deluge of others out there.  Thank you, Dave!

I'd also like to mention Guido Henkel, whose incredibly helpful blog series on ebook formatting helped me get through the coding process and turn Separate Worlds from a word document into an actual ebook.  After pouring through his step-by-step advice, I was able to produce a book of far better quality than I otherwise would have been able to.  Thank you, Guido!

I also had a lot of help from family and friends to acquaintances to Navy colleagues, to some wonderfully intelligent folks over at Seahawks.NET.  Without your help and support, this book wouldn't be nearly what it is.  Thank you!

Producing a book of any size requires not only a lot of time, effort, and attention to detail, but it requires more than just the author alone.  After going through this process, that is more glaringly obvious to me than it had been before.  I realize this post has started to sound suspiciously like an Oscar acceptance speech, but I felt it had to be said.

And now I'm throwing the book out there to the wolves, out there for anyone to read.  I've tried to ensure it's as good as I can possibly get it, and that's all I can do.  Look for it from a variety of digital booksellers available soon for 99¢.

Update: Available now at Barnes & Noble for the NOOK eBook reader or on a PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, or Android smartphone enabled with their free NOOK eReading software.

Available now at Smashwords for Apple iPad/iBooks, Kindle devices and apps, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, Palm, most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, PCs, and others.  ISBN: 978-1-4658-4084-4.

Available now on Amazon for Kindle readers and apps.  ASIN: B0074U3LTQ.

Why do I even have a blog?

As you can see from snooping around this blog even a little, I'm not yet published.  I mean, I'm an author, but only because I say so.  You can't yet buy my stories, and I haven't yet made any money from them.  So why does a guy like me have an author's blog?

Well, to be fair, the foremost reason is because that's what the industry experts suggest.  They say to get your voice out there even before you're published, and that's what I'm doing.  So why would they advise this?  Why would an author with nothing to sell be advised to have an online presence?

First, establishing myself, however obscure, as a presence on the Internet before I'm published means I'm already ahead of the game when I do eventually publish.  I'm already ahead of the author who starts to blog, tweet, and otherwise connect at the same time his or her book is published.

Second, it shows that I'm already willing to work on publicity myself, to do what I need to do to get my stories visible, away from the dark claws of obscurity.  If I'm willing to work on things on my own, they know I'll work with them however they need in order to promote my books.  It's the sign of a good investment, and with the risks agents and publishers take with new authors, that's a good thing.

And third, it gives everyone - readers, agents, editors, publishers - a taste of my writing.  Sure, it's not the same as fiction, but it gives them a snapshot of the quality, style, and attention to detail that I likely (assuredly, actually) give my stories.  They can see my typos, or hopefully lack thereof, my grammar, my style and my voice.  Anything that allows a preview into what someone is getting makes it more enticing.

Aside from that, it allows anyone at a glance to see what type of stories I write.  It's right up there at the top: science fiction, horror, and fantasy.  You know instantly if you like the genres I write, and you know what to expect when you pick up one of my stories.

If you've been following my blog for any amount of time, you probably realize I intend to self-publish two novellas.  And you realize I'm behind my targeted schedule.  There are a couple reasons for this.  The first, and probably biggest reason is that a fractured ankle in the household has left me playing caregiver rather than maniacal wordslinger for much of the last couple of months.  I haven't been able to work nearly as much as I'd expected, but priorities being what they are, I'm fine with that.

Also, in talking with my amazingly cool editor, Karin Cox, I came to the conclusion my first story had a thread or two that needed more fleshing out to make it a much better story.  Every piece of quality advice I've found out there for self-publishers tells me the two things I had better get right are the cover and the editing process. Both are absolutely vital in producing a quality product, worthy of your hard-earned money.  And an author can't do that alone and be completely successful.  If my editor says my book would be better a certain way, then I'd damn well better listen.

Both these things, coupled with the normal family-centric holiday season, have left me woefully behind schedule.  It grates on me, knowing that schedules and deadlines are absolutely necessary in this business.  I'm still learning the ropes, but I should be able to function within the parameters I do know.

Whether I call these excuses or reasons, it all amounts to the same thing.  I'm working on it, I promise.  In fact, I've wrapped up the editing process and have begun the formatting.  Correctly formatting an e-book is a bit complicated, and involves a bit of HTML and other types of magical computer tomfoolery.  Sure, any idiot can zap a word document into the right format and have it uploaded and ready in an hour.  The problem with that is not every type of e-reader works well with formatting it the easy way, making it a very unprofessional looking product.

So bear with me just a while longer, while I wrangle through the correct way to format the book for all the major e-readers.  After all, if I'm taking your hard-earned money in good conscience, I want to make sure I have as professional a product as I can.

National Novel Writing Month

It's that time of the year, when inspiration strikes and authors around the globe begin madly writing.  NaNoWriMo is an interesting and very challenging concept, begun in 1999, designed to help jump start someone into actually finishing a novel, often for the first time.  The goal is to complete 50,000 words in one month.  It's a lofty goal, but one that often works exactly as it's designed to do.  I'm seeing a ton of folks doing it this year, and that's a great thing.  Keep at it, boys and girls!

I'm not participating this year.  Obviously it's not because I don't believe it's a great idea.  It is.  It's just not what I need to be doing at the moment.  I have a stack of finished novels already.  I can crank out another one to add to the pile at any time, and actually have two of them I'm dying to finish.

But priorities being what they are, I'm putting them off for now because I have editing to do.  I'm still working with my editor on Separate Worlds, and will be working on another novella to follow in my foray into the self-publishing world.  As such, they're short term goals, and that is what needs to occupy my mind and my time this month.

And when I'm not working on those projects these days, I'm doing a final edit on the first three books of the Plexus.  That's a much larger project, and one I need to spend some concentrated effort and time on.  It's a whole lot of fun, but it's also a ton of work, something I really shouldn't cut away from to write another book.

I'm tempted to, though.  Boy am I tempted to!  My next two books are very exciting ones, and I'm dying to get into them.  One's a dark murder mystery involving a ghost in Spokane's famous 1909 Looff Carousel.  The other is a chilling tale of horror based on the story I related a couple of posts back, about that terrifying experience on Mount Ellis in Southwestern Montana.  Yes, I want very badly to jump aboard, even a week or two late and throw myself into one of them.

But I can't.  It would be counterproductive, which is the exact opposite of what NaNoWriMo is supposed to accomplish.  NaNoWriMo is supposed to get you off your butt and working on that novel, and working on one of those, while productive in the sense I'd finish up another novel, isn't what I need at the moment.  I need those finished novels edited.  I need to concentrate on getting them perfected and polished further, so they'll be ready for publication.

So, those of you participating this year, know that I'm extremely jealous, but at the same time, I'm perfectly happy editing instead of writing.  The Plexus is a fantastic story, and one I simply must get perfect.  In baseball terms, it's two outs, two strikes, bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth in a tied game.  Sure, I can win the game with a single, but it's a grand slam waiting to happen, and it's up to me to deliver.

And that's why we edit.

Semper Gumby!

"Semper gumby".  That's Latin for "always flexible", or at least it should be.  While I learned that phrase in the Navy, it's as applicable to writers as it is to sailors.  Every writer should have it as their unofficial motto.

Why do I bring this up?  Well, because things haven't gone according to plan, and I have to adjust.  I'd promised you my novella, Separate Worlds, would be available sometime in October.  October has come and almost gone already, and it is still not ready for publication.

Things happen in this business, like any other business.  And because they do, things often don't go according to plan or schedule.  They call an endeavor like this "self-publishing", but that's really a misnomer.  At least it is if the author does it right.  There is more to it than simply writing a book and throwing it out there for folks to read.  There is a process that involves much more than that, including several types of editing and proofing.  More people are involved than just the author.  Fellow author David Gaughran blogs about this process, and is one of the better resources for this I've seen on the Internet.  Reading through his blog gives one a very clear picture of everything involved.

Suffice it to say this has been a learning experience, which is exactly what I wanted it to be when I decided to publish Separate Worlds as an e-book.  It's a foray into a world I haven't explored yet, and it continues to teach as I go along.  It's an interesting and educational look into the relatively new phenomenon that is e-publishing.  It's the wave of the future for publishing, whatever that future ends up being.

I expect to be back on track before long.  I'll get out there, but not before it's as polished as it needs to be.  In the meantime, you'll just have to enjoy a shot of the cover, designed by my genius graphic design artist, Todd Bréda.

Separate Worlds, © Jonathan Dalar

Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt: Guest Post by David Gaughran

I've been wanting to branch out and do something a little different for a while, and one of those things was to invite another author to do a guest blog here.  I think it brings a lot more to the blog than just another opinion or perspective.  It also gives me a chance to showcase someone else here and introduce you to them and their work.

Today's guest post is by David Gaughran, an up-and-coming author, blogger, and self-proclaimed proponent of self-publishing.  He has so far published two shorter works of fiction and a nonfiction book on self-publishing, which I have read and highly recommend.  Here are his thoughts on self-publishing, with some good advice based on his own experiences.

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There is a lot of disinformation out there about self-publishing. I chose that word carefully. Some people are consciously spreading inaccurate information about self-publishing to steer writers away from it.

In the software industry, they called this FUD: fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The idea was that you would create enough question marks about a competitor's product so that the customer would stick with yours.

Those who are vigorously defending the status quo, you will find, are those that have the most to lose from it changing.

However, I'm not interested in assigning blame. I'm interested in writers getting accurate information about all the new opportunities that are presenting themselves.

Prior to 2007, a writer had one viable choice: pursuing a publishing contract. Self-publishing existed, but publishers had a lock on the distribution system. Self-publishers found it next-to-impossible to get their books in stores.

Also, to publish a print book at a price that could compete with publishers meant taking the risk of splashing out on a print run, storage space for all those books, and coming up with some way of selling to customers directly. Not easy, and a lot of people lost money.

That all changed when Amazon launched their digital self-publishing platform. Suddenly, publishers no longer had a lock on the distribution network. Plus, e-books were far cheaper to produce. There were still some costs, mainly cover design and editing, but those costs only had to be covered once - there was no extra fee for going back to the printer.

When e-books really took off in November 2010, a lot of writers began to consider self-publishing for the first time. While the first people to make real money were those that previously had a successful career in trade publishing, such as Joe Konrath and Scott Nicholson, new stars such as Amanda Hocking, John Locke, Mark Edwards, and Victorine Lieske emerged.

In addition to them, writers such as Louise Voss, J Carson Black, and Bob Mayer, switched from trade publishing to self-publishing and started to make more money. A lot more money.

By now, self-publishing has proved itself as a viable career path for unpublished writers, those who have had a successful trade publishing career, and those that haven’t.

Bob Mayer, for example, made the NYT Bestseller list twice, and shifted over 1 million copies of his Atlantis series alone for his publishers. He is making more now on his own. In July alone, he made $100,000 from self-published work.

Some people might say that all of these people are exceptions to the rule, that only a tiny percentage will succeed. But isn’t this true of trade publishing? What percentage of any agent’s slushpile will make it onto the bookshelves at Barnes & Noble? What percentage will get any kind of deal at all?

One of the more common tactics to scare people away from self-publishing is to tell them that no agent or publisher will ever touch them if they go that route. Someone should really mention that to all the agents hunting in the Kindle Store for new clients.

I know of ten self-publishers that have been approached by agents in the last few months, just from hanging out on Kindle Boards. One agency alone – Trident – has signed five self-publishers that I know of this year. Every few weeks, I hear of another self-publisher that has been approached directly to sell foreign rights to their work.

I think we can say that it’s clear that self-publishing is a viable path. But is it the best path for you and your work?

That is a question that each writer will have to answer for themselves. But what writers need to understand is that it’s not either/or. Many self-publishers I know also have trade deals for some of their work. Many in trade publishing are self-publishing “side projects” such as reverted backlist titles, short stories, or novels they were unable to place.

I think this kind of “mixed portfolio” will become more common, not less common, and in fact I think it’s a prudent approach as you will get the best of both worlds: the higher royalties from self-publishing, and the audience expansion into print that’s so hard to achieve on your own.

Barry Eisler walked away from a huge trade deal to self-publish. He released three titles, then signed a trade deal with Amazon, for one book, and has indicated he will be self-publishing further titles in the future. J Carson Black just signed a 3 book deal with Amazon. She will be releasing two self-published titles in the Fall. Amanda Hocking signed a huge trade deal with St. Martin’s Press. She will be continuing to self-publish other work. Michael J Sullivan signed a six book deal with Orbit. He will also be self-publishing.

The point is, they are not mutually exclusive paths. You can self-publish some work, and pursue trade deals for other projects.

Back in March, when I was really struggling to decide whether to pull my novel from the remaining agents that were considering it and self-publish it, I didn’t know this. It was only when I realised that I could self-publish a couple of stories – as an experiment – that I broke the impasse.

And that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t have to pull my novel. It remained with the agents. And I self-published. Two months later, I had sold over 200 books. I pulled the novel.

So for anyone unsure about self-publishing, for anyone that doesn’t know if it’s something they would enjoy, or something that could work for them, I suggest doing the same. Self-publish a short story. See if you enjoy the process. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t.

If you do, then you can consider publishing your novel that way. If you don’t, you’ve lost nothing other than the minimal cost involved in publishing a short, and you will at least have learned something.

I’m a huge convert to self-publishing. If you had asked me about it six months ago, I would have thought it was only viable for writers with a sizeable backlist of reverted titles. I don’t think that anymore.

But, like most self-publishers, I wouldn’t say no to a trade deal if the terms were right. However, the difference now is that if I am approached by an agent or publisher, I will be dealing from a position of strength. I made $425 last month. From self-publishing. It’s only my third month. I haven’t even got my novel out yet.

And if a publisher approached me tomorrow, and made an offer on my novel, I know exactly what the minimum terms I would accept are. I have sales records. I have built a platform. I have a rough idea of how many books I could sell.

When I was in the slushpile, I would have taken anything. Now, instead, I know the value of my work. I’m making money. And I’m writing more than ever because the joy is back.

Chasing an agent is such a grind. It’s such a negative experience. Self-publishing has been nothing but positive. I’m back in control of my life and my career. And I’m having a blast.

Self-publishing might not be for everyone. But I think even that is looking at it the wrong way. You aren’t making a career choice which is tying you down for life, closing doors. You are making a decision on one book, or story. It’s not binding.

And if you do it right, you might find that it opens doors.

- David Gaughran

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Many thanks to Dave for sharing that post here.  He's got a few things figured out that authors, self-published or otherwise, would do well to heed.  I wish him the best of success in his own endeavors.  His blog, Let's Get Digital, is a great source of information for both writers and readers alike, and consistently has news and current information on the world of publishing.  You can find his books on Amazon.com, as well as other digital book sources on the web.

Exciting Times to be a Writer!

The world of books as we know it has turned upside down.  For those living under a rock lately, Borders is officially done.  Barnes and Noble, while not done (yet), has been in trouble very recently.  Unless they turn their strategy around, they could well be following in Borders' footsteps.  Regardless of what happens, the fall of Borders is seen as a boon to Barnes and Noble.  For now.  Folks have been saying Barnes and Noble did it right, while Borders did it wrong, but that too can change quickly.  Especially for a struggling company that received an artificial shot in the arm for business.

Further shake-ups could be likely.  Books-A-Million tried to buy out the inventory for 30 of those Borders stores, but couldn't do it in the end.  More buy-outs or attempted buy-outs will probably happen.  In the end, it will be death by attrition and survival of those who adapt to the changing times the quickest.

Some are bemoaning the future of reading, that it's the death of new writing for some reason.  Whatever will we do if we don't have books?  Well, it's never going to be that bleak.  Books have been here to stay since their inception.  Their form may change, and the opportunities for writing them may ebb and flow, but they'll remain as strong as ever.  People may lament the fact that e-books don't give them that same special feeling that "real" books do, but it's not about feelings.  It's about numbers.  And the bottom line for publishers involves numbers, not feelings.

Enough bad news.  Remember, I said it was exciting times to be a writer, and I truly believe that.  The shake-ups have only begun to begin and there's more than we could ever imagine just around the corner.

We've already seen figures for the first half of this year, and digital books are going through the roof while other forms are in decline.  The comparison between the two shows just how fast the digital revolution is happening in the world of books.

E-books are here in a big way, and they're here to stay.  Self-publishing was once looked at as nothing more than an ego-boosting outlet for hopeless hacks but is now a viable option with e-books.  More and more agencies, such as BookEnds, LLC, are coming to terms with self-publishing, and are forming strategies to adopt it into their business plan.

And many more new opportunities are springing up - new, interesting forms of publishing that until a few short years ago were completely unheard of.  One such example is University of Michigan's foray into digital publishing by serializing two novels for free on Facebook.  Interesting concept.  Whether it will take off into something viable is not really something I care to debate.  The fact that it is happening, and adding to the shake-up of the publishing world is the important part.

For a talented writer, there is always a market.  Yes, it's always going to be tough.  There will always be competition for publication and readership.  There will always be naysayers and holdouts to whatever has been tradition.  But there will always be those on the cutting edge of the industry.  Authors would do well to be a part of that.  After all, it's their future.  Our future.  And I'm happy I'm a part of it.

Sneak Peek: Separate Worlds

The cover for my novella, Separate Worlds is done, and as promised, it's magnificent!  It was created by graphic designer Todd Bréda, and meets all my expectations for a cover.  He's set the bar high, and it's up to me to make sure the content matches what the reader expects when viewing the cover.

The story itself is a fun story.  It's not terribly upbeat, nor is it comedy or satire.  It's fun because it offers alternate views of an alien encounter - one from the perspective of space travel to a distant inhabited planet, and the second from that of a society facing a sudden alien invasion.

The two views contrast our own space race and constant search for intelligent life out there in the void with the legends of ancient Atlantis and the magnificent city that might never have existed.  Hearkening back to those legends, the story assumes that neither world has quite forgotten the encounter, and as such, the tales of it on each are drastically different.

At approximately 14,000 words, it's not a novel.  It's not a short story either, which is why e-publishing seems to be the right venue for it.  Few stories are published at this length, as it's neither cost effective to publish as stand-alone hard copy books, nor short enough for inclusion in most periodicals.

While it's not a terribly long read, it is entertaining.  It doesn't force you to think about any deep philosophical subjects or question why were here at all, but it lets you if you so choose.  It simply takes a few what-if questions about the myths of Atlantis and relates a tale based on those questions.

It's still in editorial stages, but it's getting closer to publication.  I hope to have it available as an e-book within a month or so.  It was tremendously fun to write, and I only hope it will be as fun for you to read.

Update:  It's finished.  Details and links to where it is available can be found in this post.  Enjoy!

Learning the Other Side of Writing

This venture into e-publishing has already been an adventure, and it's only getting started.  I'm starting to see the business side of things.  You know, the parts that aren't just you and the story, sitting there together in total solitude, hammering out how it's going to end.  The parts where you interact with others who have an impact on the story too.  The parts that make it more than just your own personal baby.

It's all a little scary, but like a roller coaster, it's also a lot of fun.  It's scary because at this point, there's no backing out.  I've already committed to doing this, and I know I need to get it right.  I need to get it right at least for my own sense of accomplishment, according to my own standards, no matter how well it sells.  Selling it of course it the ultimate goal here, but I understand how the business works.  I realize that it's a tricky one, often influenced by factors outside anyone's ability to control.  There are things that can be done to increase its chances, but there are also a lot of intangibles.

Although I'm experimenting with e-publishing Separate Worlds on my own, I can see where certain aspects of the business would be the same, no matter how it was published.  I'm starting to see the interaction between all the people necessary for it to be released to the public, and I know this is only the beginning.  I can see once this is finished and available for sale, I'll have a lot of experience to share in the area.  I won't be an expert, not by a long shot, but at least I'll be able to talk coherently on the subject.

I just signed off on the final design of the cover. My cover artist and graphic design genius, Todd Bréda, was wonderful to work with.  He took my ideas and crafted them into a great looking cover that really displays all the concepts I was looking for in a very professional way.

I wanted to start out with a background portraying space travel, other galaxies and planets, and especially the other world where the story takes place.  Setting it against a backdrop of space would automatically give it the feel of a science fiction story.  I also wanted the concept of space travel and a rift between galaxies on it.  That's a lot to ask, but after a little work tossing ideas back and forth, Todd came up with something that very subtly did both.  And it worked within the constraints of the area we had to work with on the cover.

I also wanted the title, subtitle and author byline font to let the reader know this book was science fiction, so I sent a half dozen images of some of the pure science fiction covers out there for him to use as inspiration.  What he came up with melds classic science fiction with a more modern touch, and it does so very nicely.  Together, the elements work perfectly.  The cover cannot be mistaken for anything other than that of a science fiction tale, and it very accurately portrays the story I've written.

Ironically, while I was in the middle of this, fellow author David Gaughran blogged about his own experience coming up with a book cover.  And although we didn't do things in quite the same way, there have been definite similarities.  It was very interesting to read his experiences, especially as someone who was doing the exact same thing at the time.

One of the differences between David's experience and mine was the input from others he got during the process.  So far, the only others who have seen the work aside from Todd and me are my immediate family.  I've gotten some good critical advice from them, and they approve of the final copy, whether they needed to or not.  I could have sent it to more people and gotten advice along the way from potential readers, but I chose not to.  I don't think I needed to.  I felt that between Todd's abilities and input, and my own artistic sense, we could come up with something that would work beautifully.  And we did.  The cover will be up on the blog before too long, and you'll be able to see for yourself.

It may seem like I've put the cart before the horse in finishing the cover before I get the story professionally edited, and indeed I've thought that a time or two.  But I don't think so.  For one thing, it allows me a longer lead time to promote the story with a beautiful piece of cover art before it's finally out for consumption.  Another thing it's allowed me to do is tweak the story just slightly as I'm doing my final edit to more closely mirror the picture the cover puts into the reader's mind.  Doing it this way allows far more artistic license to meld the story better with the cover art.  I wouldn't have nearly the ability to do this otherwise.

I'm now in the final stages of perfecting the story.  It's polished and edited a number of times - I've kind of lost track by now - and it's ready for one final, professional edit.  I've chosen a couple of editors I feel I'd be comfortable working with, and I'm confident that whichever one I end up working with will do a marvelous job.

I still have to work out the technical aspects of the story, but I'm not as worried about that.  That is simply a matter of formatting files correctly and uploading them as required.  That's just a bit of research and some careful attention to detail on my part.  I think I can handle that part.

All in all, it's been incredibly interesting and educational to say the least.  It's a gamble.  I'm not only investing monetarily in doing this, I'm also putting my work out as published, risking myself as an author in the hopes it will be successful.  Like I said, it's a gamble, but it's less about that than it is about the educational experience of it.  It's already taught me more about authorship and the publication business than ever before, and that has to be worth something in the end.

Progress on Publication

I've been working on publication for a long, long time now.  I believe my first short story rejection is dated sometime in the 80's.  Yea.  A long, long time, indeed.

There have been hiatuses from time to time, when I either didn't feel anything was good enough, or I was between duty stations in the Navy, or I was just plain too busy or away too much of the time to constantly send things out in the mail.  This was especially hard before the advent of e-queries.

I've also recently been thinking a lot about epublishing.  It certainly seems to be the way of the future.  I've been doing copious amounts of research on the subject, and it's frankly quite intriguing.  The royalty margins are better, that's for sure.  I also have more creative control over what I'm putting out there, and while that may not always be a good thing, at times even the pros don't get it as right as they could.  And, perhaps the most enticing part, it allows publication of stories that might never otherwise see the light of day.

It's a lot of work, though.  If I'm to do it right, there's no cutting corners.  There's no putting out a less than quality work.  If I'm in, I'm all in.  And that means editing it and refining it until I'm sick and tired of it, and then handing it over to a pro to do the same.  Then back for additional edits and tweaks.

And it means getting a professional cover for it, one that will hopefully set it apart from the other self-published stuff, and help it compete with the big boys.  Which brings us to the progress I noted in the title.  I'm pleased to be able to say last night I got a sneak peek at what the cover for Separate Worlds is going to look like.  I won't give away too much, but the digital designer who's doing the cover mailed me the initial base from which he's making the cover, and I was much impressed!  It's a work in progress, but so far it looks excellent.  It's going to be a great one, and a critical part of the publishing process.

I've said before there are only a few things needed, besides a great story of course, to propel book sales.  Marketing is an obvious one, and we'll talk more about that later.  Another is the jacket blurb.  That's often the only real snapshot of what's inside the book a reader gets before buying it or putting it back and walking away.  I'm working on that part.  The other thing is the cover.  People are drawn to professional-looking covers, because it suggests a professional book.  And even if the book isn't produced by one of the big six, having a professional cover does a lot for it.  Not only is it harder to tell it wasn't published in New York, it suggests that care and professionalism were put into the book.  It suggests the author took the time and effort to put out a quality product, and that's what readers are looking for.

So it appears I'm well on the way to solidifying one of those areas with exactly the professional quality I was looking for.  We'll see about the rest.  For now, things are looking good.  I have a long way to go, but in the end I will be confident about the product I'm putting out.

The e-Pub War has Begun!

Indie authors outselling traditionally published authors, literary agents jumping on the publishing gig, e-Books taking a huge chunk of the bookselling pie, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria!  It's nuts out there in the publishing world.

There's more news on this subject, and I bet it's only the tip of the iceberg.  Literary Agent Kristin Nelson, of Nelson Literary Agency, LLC has had some interesting observations on the publishing world's reaction to the e-book phenomenon.  Last Tuesday, she broke down Harlequin's move to 25% of net receipts for single title romances starting January 2012.  Yesterday, she continued with this theme, with a post on Random House's sudden (random?) and arbitrary move to do the same this April.

What do these moves signify?  Not sure yet what they mean in the long run, but they're certainly the next volley of shots fired.  And while for the most part, big publishing houses and indie authors have a relatively amicable relationship, I think we need to look at the underlying causes for not only this relationship, but for the moves the industry is taking in the future.

First, the indie author wants to stay in good standing with the traditional publishers.  They're the ultimate goal, after all.  They're roughly the equivalent of his future employers.  The indie author, for the most part, would love nothing more than to pick up a nice contract with a major publisher.  And publishers are always looking for that next breakout bestseller.

But the bottom line is money.  Always has been and always will be.  This industry is no different from any other in that regard.  The author wants his cut.  The publishers line up their business models to maximize profit.  If you think otherwise, compare commonly given advice that no publisher will take a debut novel of over about 130,000 words (and that's stretching it) to the success of books like Stephen King's The Stand, and countless others that push the boundaries into epic territory.  They understand they're not likely at all to make up costs on your gargantuan debut novel, but they know King can easily break into the profit column no matter what he writes.  It looks like hypocrisy, but in fact it's just the bottom line.

The e-book has been turning those profit margins and well established industry norms upside down.  GalleyCat recently referenced agent-turned-author Nathan Bradford's poll on e-book price points in their own breakdown of the various opinions of the subject.  The paradigm has shifted, and nobody knows just yet where it's settled.  The reality is that it hasn't settled yet, and it probably won't for some time.  It's going to take a while for the industry norms to balance.  As evidenced by GalleyCat's post, there is a wide range of opinion on just how much an e-book should cost.  Nobody agrees, and nobody knows who's right or wrong, if there is even a right or wrong now.

This is all about author royalties as well as what percentages agents and publishers are getting from books.  With Amazon's royalties at 70% for books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, and their traditional 35% for all others, it's no wonder in such a hard-to-break-into industry, so many authors are going this route.

The publishers of course, want a piece of that pie.  Not only don't they make any money off those independent sales, but those sales cut into their own.  A reader is only going to spend so much on books, and if he buys an independently published book, that's one less book publishers are going to profit from.

I'm still on the fence about indie publishing as a whole.  I think it's changed dramatically from where it began, and I also think it's going to become a sizable portion of the industry.  It's here to stay.  There are indie books out there that are just as professional as ones produced by traditional publishers.  If and when I publish a book this way, you can know for damn sure it's going to look every bit as good as something you'd buy from one of the big guys.  I won't settle for less, and that, I believe is the key to success in the indie publishing world.

Price points are something I'm still very much unsure about.  My first endeavor will most likely be a roughly 13,000-word science fiction novella.  One of those in that nebulous no-man's-land of "unpublishable" lengths.  I've seen all lengths of works priced all over the board.  Kindle phenom John Locke proudly publishes all of his novels at 99 cents.  Others price theirs on up, even over the $9.99 threshold Kindle has tried to set for the majority of its fiction.  I've seen short stories for the same price as Locke's novels, and even higher.

An author needs to find that sweet spot for pricing.  Too high and he scares away potential readers who don't want to pay as much as he's asking.  Too little, and folks start to suspect it's in the bargain bin for a very good reason.  Besides the cover and the jacket blurb, the price is really the only thing people can look at when contemplating a book.

Writing is an art.  Writing is fun.  It's the sheer exhilaration of crafting words into entertainment without a thought about how much exposure it'll get or how much money you'll make off it.  It's done for the pure craft of storytelling.

Publishing, however, is a science.  Hitting that correct supply and demand balance to ensure maximum sales.  It's all about the marketing, the publicity, getting word out there and getting your book to move.  It's my least favorite aspect of the whole thing, by a wide margin, but I realize that to be successfully published, you can't have one without the other.  You can't write and ignore marketing and sales any more than you can try marketing a poorly written book.  You may see some success, but you won't have reached your potential, and to me, that's not doing it right.

Maybe I'm a perfectionist.  Maybe I'm just hesitant to really take a chance.  But my bottom line is doing things correctly, whatever correctly is.  I'm working on it every day, and that is why this subject is so interesting.  Hang on, folks, we're only getting started.  There's a lot more craziness in store for the industry!

Story Length, e-Books, and the Salvation of the Novella

This interesting topic has come up again recently for me, and it's one that has seen quite a lot of heated debate since well, about as long ago as when stories were first published, or even invented.  How long is too long?  How short is too short?  What's the right length for a publishable work?  I feel like Goldilocks and the three bears just thinking about it.

Too short, and your story isn't publishable.  There's just not enough profit to be made over such a small story and it won't cover the costs it incurs.  And while short stories and flash fiction can be combined into anthologies and collections, with some exceptions, even those are not terribly popular and are difficult to sell for all but the most popular authors.

Too long, and your story is again not publishable.  No one will touch it because it will cost too much to put into print.  They won't have the profit margins they need to make the money they need to off the book.  They have strict guidelines in place to maintain profitability, and they need to in order to continue publishing.

But the problem lies in the stories themselves.  A good writer can tweak the story some to control the length of the work he produces, but a story is really exactly the length it needs to be to be told.  If the story is told as it should be in 30,000 words, then so be it.  That's the length it needs to be.

But how to you sell the thing at that length, especially if you don't want to pare it down to a short story magazines will buy, or pump another 20,000 words into it to market it as a novel?  After all, at those lengths, changing the story by that many words is essentially taking half of it away or nearly doubling it in length, and that changes a story to the point where it's essentially a different story altogether.

That's exactly my latest quandary.  I'm still toying with the idea of putting out an e-book, to experiment with the new market, and to gain more experience and a better understanding of the moves the publishing industry may be making in the near future.

I don't really want to put one of my novels out there.  I just don't feel it's the right move to make at the moment.  I thought about bundling 50,000 words of my favorite short stories and putting them out as an anthology, but I don't know about that either.  It might be a good idea, but I'm hesitant to put so many of them together and publish them all at once.  I don't really know why, other than the fact that I'm obsessed with doing things the right way the first time.

Which leads me to my novellas.  I have two of them so far that are sweet middle of the road lengths that are too long for almost every magazine and too short for publication as stand-alone books.  But e-books change the dynamic on things.  There's no length restrictions with e-books, because it takes no more resources to crunch a novella to the proper format as it does an epic novel.  Maybe a few more bytes of memory, and maybe a little more time to save the thing, but really, in today's age of gigabytes and terabytes, that's not an issue.

There may be additional editing expenses for longer works, but for a novella that's not the case.  On the surface it seems like the perfect solution.  If I want to push the envelope on my writing a little further and explore the e-book experience, novellas may be the perfect way to do it.  I can put those stories out for people to read in a medium that allows it, while saving shorter and longer work for the more traditional methods already established in the industry.  And if I ever want to go back and put the novellas in print, I might have a better shot at doing that by bundling two or three of them together as an anthology once I get my career off the ground.

I really, sincerely hope the advent of e-books have changed the dynamic of publishing so much that an entire market for novellas and novelettes has been created.  I hope the floodgates open for these mid-length stories and sales prove they're just as viable as works of other length in the marketplace, and just as important for the reader.  It would be nice to see that, because there's something to be said about a story of that length.  They're fun to read.  They let you in a little more than a short story does, and a lot more than flash fiction.  They allow you a little closer than just the quick peek of shorter fiction, but yet don't take the time and emotional commitment of a novel.  After all, when you buy a novel, you're committing both time and emotional energy to something you don't even know you you'll like.  With a novella, you can get pulled into a really great story without investing the time and energy necessary for a novel.  It's a happy medium.  It's not the day trip, nor is it the two-week family vacation, but the weekend getaway of reading, and I think there's a need for that.

We'll see how things turn out, but for now it looks like the evolution of the publishing industry may have taken a turn for the betterment of stories.  After all, if it allows the publication of those stories stuck in the no man's land of "improper" length, that's a win for readers and authors alike.

Playing the Devil's Advocate

I just wrote a post contemplating the benefits of self-publishing e-books against sticking with the more traditional methods of finding an agent, getting a contract with a publishing company and eventually seeing the book in print.  I'm still considering it, but I'm not entirely sold either, and the reason is that doing things the traditional way does have its advantages.  Big advantages.

First, as author and former agent Nathan Bransford writes, traditional publishers bring a lot to the table that the author simply can't do himself.  They provide editing and copyediting, and both are invaluable to a writer.  One of the quickest things that will turn me off a book, especially one written by an unknown author is a slew of typos, bad writing, and poor editing.  You don't want that as a new author.  You need every advantage you can to sell your books.  Well established authors will sell millions of copies just based on the fact they are who they are.  Stephen King sells books based on name recognition alone.  Jonathan Dalar, with the possible exception of a handful of friends and family, does not.

Another thing publishers provide is professional design, printing, and packaging.  They make the book look pretty - prettier than I'd be able to do as an author, or at least without spending the family fortune, however much that may be.  They have these services in house, as part of their standard package of doing business.  It's all part of the process, not something I'd have to figure out on my own and hope I got it at least semi-right.

Publicity is yet another area that publishers are well versed in.  They use their own already well established vehicles of marketing to push your book.  They help set up the tours and reviews and all the other work necessary to get your book out there, stuff that usually resides well below the radar to the average reader.  They're the ones who buy space on that highly visible rack right inside the door of the bookstore that you see when you walk in.  They're who determines which books get put on the end caps of the shelves, at visible eye-level locations, or stuffed spine out along with the rest of the books.

And speaking of those bookstores, the publisher is the one who gets your book into the stores.  Most bookstores, and virtually all the larger ones, will not even consider stocking a self-published book, no matter how well it's doing.  The publishing companies have a long, well established track record with them, the bookstores know they're going to get good titles when they buy their books, and there is far less to gamble on doing business with them than with an unproven author on his own.  The previously unpublished author who's going it himself can't begin to compete with a similar author who's backed by Simon & Schuster or the Penguin Group.

This doesn't even cover the advance.  As I said in my previous post, you can earn a lot more of a percentage with royalties doing it yourself.  And selling enough books, you can earn above and beyond that advance by a lot more than with the 15% traditional methods offer.  But that's the catch.  You've got to sell those books.  And $10,000 advance from the publisher is money you don't have to give back, no matter if you only sell a handful of books.  That's pretty damn enticing.

As I've said, self-publishers can break into the market in a big way, as evidenced by Amanda Hocking and others.  It's an incredible long shot though, and it still took a lot of hard work and a ton of luck.  To sell a lot of novels, you have to have several things going for you.  You have to have a lot of exposure to people likely to buy your books.  You have to create a large, growing audience of dedicated readers - people who will go out and buy your next book just because your name is on the front cover.  You have to be not only a great writer, but a great marketer as well.

There has been some very interesting news along these lines recently.  The poster child for indie publishing, Amanda Hocking herself, just signed with St. Martin's Press.  That's right, she's switching to traditional publishing when she had already made a solid name for herself (and a lot of money) by publishing on her own.  And doing almost the exact opposite, author Barry Eisler, who has been quite successful publishing the traditional ways, tuns down a $500,000 advance to self-publish.  Yes.  A five followed by five zeros.  What to make of this?  Which one is right?  As David Gaughran explains better than I could, each appears to be making the right decision for themselves.  For more on this subject, author Tracy Marchini weighs in, guest blogging for Nathan Bransford.

But where does that leave me?  What's the best option for me?  Sadly, I have no $500,000 advance to turn down and try my hand at self-publishing.  I also don't have the massive success in the indie market to garner such attention from the large publishing houses.  I'm starting from the bottom here, and it's a long, tough road.  In spite of the odds, traditional publishing may indeed be the best way to go.  They just have so much to offer, it's hard to overlook it all.  We'll see.

The fact of the matter is that times, they are a-changin', and nobody knows exactly how.  No matter what the future holds, it's important for us authors to get in on the change because it's our future too.  Like my old granddad said, "I dunno where we're goin', but there's no sense bein' late!"

Why do I write?

I've been asked that many times before, and the answer's easy.  Almost too easy.  Because I have to.  I have stories that simply have to be told, have to be written down.  But certain changes and shifts in the publishing industry have me questioning myself in this regard.

Why would I question my need to write, though, no matter what's going on in the industry?  Well, the answer isn't easily definable, but I'll give it a shot.  The short version is that it shifts focus from the writing to the end product, or at least it seems to for me.  It's caused me to look longer and harder at different schools of thought regarding publishing, and how it affects the author.

Which brings me back to why I write.  If it simply needs to be written down, then problem solved.  Done that!  Many times.  I have amassed quite a large amount of written work over the past several decades, and I've seen huge improvements in both style and storytelling ability.  And if it were just that, I'd be content to keep tapping them out on my computer for my own enjoyment.  Just to get them out of my head and into print.

But there's more to it than simply getting them out of my head.  I'd like to see them published.  I'd like others to read them as well.  That's the other side of things, the part of me that wants to sell a million copies and see my name plastered high on the New York Times Bestseller list.  That would be simply incredible!

But truth be told, that's a pretty tall order.  More along the lines of a pipe dream.  It can happen.  Relatively obscure debut authors broke through huge, such as Sara Gruen with Water for Elephants.  The Harry Potter series also turned into quite the empire for J.K. Rowling.  It's been done before and will certainly be done again.  It certainly isn't the norm, which means that reality is probably somewhere in between these two extremes.

So, with the shift to digital, things get a little muddled for an author struggling to break through in today's market.  As it stands, they say there's about a two percent shot at making it the traditional way, and that's pretty much at the 'getting an agent' level.  To get an idea of the odds, Jennifer Jackson, of the Donald Maass Literary Agency keeps up with the odds in her blog with the 'letters from the query wars' posts.  Check them out; they're shockingly educational on how amazingly hard it is to really get a reputable agent.  And those odds are pretty similar throughout the industry, in case you're wondering if it's just her.  Suzie Townsend of FinePrint Literary Management posted her stats for 2010.  According to her colleague Janet Reid, 10 new clients from 5530 queries is 'a lot'.

Which brings us full circle again to self-publishing.  I've been against it from the start.  Vanity or subsidy publishing, that is.  I've even written about it here on the blog.  It's a cop out.  Taking the easy road.  And those who know me know I generally don't take the easy road for, well, anything in life.  I'm a die-hard Seahawks fan for pity's sake.  That ought to tell you something about me taking the hard road.

But there's more to it than that.  Author David Gaughran recently wrote a very interesting piece on his blog on the market's shift toward digital, titled Why Traditional Publishers Will Go The Way Of Travel Agents.  Seriously, who uses travel agents anymore when you can book your own vacation online through any number of sites and tweak your vacation however you'd like to yourself?  I know I don't.  And he thinks the giant industry of publishing is headed that way too?  No one knows for sure, but thing is, he's probably right, and that is a gigantic paradigm shift for everyone involved.

E-book sales are rapidly growing.  According to the Association of American Publishers, e-books outranked all other categories of trade publishing this last February.  E-book sales accounted for $90.3 million for the month, or a 202% increase from their sales a year ago.  And although adult paperback and hardcover still rank number one and number two overall, e-book sales have risen dramatically to date.  Every indication is that digital is the wave of the future, and that future is now.  Every day we see more and more authors, such as fellow author Carolyn Arnold, going this way instead of the traditional route.

Another reason e-books are a good fit for authors is the percentages they earn in relation to traditional royalties.  The industry standard for royalties from a traditional publishing house is 15%.  This normally includes a $5,000.00 to $10,000.00 advance against those royalties the author keeps no matter how many books sell.  That's a tidy sum for an author just starting out, and compared to shelling out his own money to get a book published, being offered ten grand instead seems to be a no-brainer.

But e-books can earn far higher royalty percentages for an author.  After all, there are no huge publishing costs to cover, and in fact, the publisher is completely taken out of the picture.  At a rate of 70% royalties from Amazon, selling a book for less money than via traditional publishing will net the author far more far quicker.  That tidy advance that seemed so tempting a moment ago suddenly pales in comparison, especially when you figure that once that advance sum has been reached (by selling fewer books), you're still earning 70% per book instead of 15%.

However, the one big advantage the publishing industry has over do-it-yourselfers is professionalism.  After all, they're the professionals in the business.  They provide the badly needed editorial process, they handle the book's ISBN and formal copyright issues, the cover, the distribution, marketing, and a lot of other great services which contribute to the book's success.

But much of that can still be done by the author, if he puts enough time, effort and attention to detail into things.  Attention to detail is the bread and butter of the military, and I'm pretty sure that with twenty years of experience with it, I could probably figure out how to do it correctly.  There would be up-front money involved, certainly.  To come up with a professional quality cover, invest in proper editing and layout, and such would certainly cost.  And to a reader, that's usually really all it takes.  When was the last time you bought a book based on who published it?  Did you even notice the publisher?  Or did you look at the cover, the title, the back cover blurb and over all appearance of the book's quality?  My guess is it was the latter.

So if an author can accomplish this without going the traditional route, it stands to reason he'd be about as successful on his own.  Maybe more so, maybe less.  But where do you draw the line with success?  Is it the New York Times Bestseller list or bust?  Or is a modest run of 5,000 to 10,000 books good enough?  A person can cripple their odds of getting picked up by a reputable New York literary agency by churning out a self-published book that sells four hundred copies.  After all, if you don't spend the time and effort, or your work is just so shoddy, that you have to publish it yourself, how is that going to be a selling point to an agent?  It has in fact, the exact opposite effect, and with good reason.

5,000 to 10,000 copies in print, however, is a modest success, and is a credential worth mentioning to an agent the next time around.  At that many copies, you've done better than many folks who went the traditional route and simply didn't sell through their advance.  And you probably have a much better chance of getting picked up than they do, because publishers are leery of giving a second chance to someone who didn't come through the first time.

So it all boils down to doing it right, no matter how that is.  I'm still sending queries out, still trying my hand at the traditional methods, but I can't help but look at the alternatives, especially when they seem to be the immediate future of my industry.  The reasons I write have a lot to do with the methods I chose, and may well influence a change in how I approach things.  Stay tuned, folks, it's going to get pretty interesting!

The Future of Publishing

Since Johannes Gutenberg first began mass-producing movable type in 1439, the publishing industry has come a long ways.  And as technological advances compound the progress almost exponentially, things seem to change on almost a daily basis.

Back when I first started sending my work out to publishers in the late 1980's, the one firm and fast rule was to always include an SASE, or a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope.  This was to ensure you'd get that rejection you were anticipating back from the publisher.  If you didn't include an SASE, you were almost guaranteed of never hearing from them.

Now sending an SASE is still a firm and fast rule when submitting work via the postal service, but with so many in the industry moving online, using snail mail is dying out.  In fact, I haven't sent anything out by regular mail for a long time.  I personally feel that if the agent or publisher is not fully functional online with e-mail submissions, or at least an online submission form, they may not be as up with the times as I want in an agent.  After all, who wants a dinosaur to market your science fiction novel?  That's not to say someone who still requires submissions be sent regular mail is completely out of touch with the modern world.  It's just that I prefer to take that risk out of the equation as much as I can.

Just as submissions are almost completely done in the virtual world, the publishing side is following suite.  They're a little slower at it, and with valid reasons.  Many people still prefer a good book to curl up with and read.  A book just feels better, more natural.  It's probably just a lifetime of conditioning, and fifty years from now an e-reader will feel right.  For now, though, paper books are still the industry standard.

More and more publishers are marketing virtual books.  The whole concept is probably older than most people realize.  It all started with Project Gutenberg in the early seventies.  There was a push for e-readers as early as the turn of the century, but unfortunately the world didn't seem to be quite ready for them and they almost faded into obscurity.  They've had quite the revival lately though.  The American Publishing Institution estimated that by mid-2010, sales for e-books represented as much as 8.5% of total book sales.

There are both positives and negatives to this.  On the upside, it's awesome for authors.  Standard royalties generally pay the author no more than 15% on a regular paper book's sales.  Royalties for e-books can be upwards of 25% to 50% or even higher sometimes.  That's a substantial number.  It's possible because there is less overhead associated with making an e-book.  There are no paper costs, ink costs, printing and labor costs, distribution costs, and the list goes on.

I'm in on the movement.  As a science fiction writer and aficionado, it seems I'd almost have to be, right?  My wife bought me an Amazon Kindle as a present last Christmas.  It's a wonderful thing.  I charge it like a phone or an iPod and use it like a book.  It doesn't have the shiny pixelated look to it like a computer screen does.  It's not quite the same as reading a regular book, but it's pretty damn close.  I can store thousands of books on it and it's no larger than a standard paperback.  Oh, and with the click of a button, I can buy more books.  I click "buy" on Amazon, the book appears in my Kindle and the money vanishes from my checking account.  Scary!

Kindle is not the only e-reader out there.  There are plenty more of them, and others are coming along every day.  The market is there for them, and when the market supports something, it is probably here to stay.  At least until we all get atomic chipsets in our brains and use our thoughts to access something in the virtual world.

The downside to e-publishing is the publishing houses are losing a huge chunk of revenue, and they want it back.  Suddenly the author is making a much larger amount of money that comes from the revenue they used to make by printing paper books.  In fact, taking away the need to stock books on shelves and market and distribute them suddenly takes away the need to even have a publisher.  All you need is a little tech know-how and you can publish your own book.  Amazon already has a means to do this in place for free.

There are obvious issues with this, as you may have inferred if you've read my previous post on self-publishing.  The editing process is a very vital part of the industry, and this takes away the editors along with the publishers.  Publishers and editors have a tremendously important role in the industry, in spite of the advances in technology.

So where is it all going?  Where will we be in fifty years?  How about a hundred or more?  No one really knows yet, but some kind of change is definitely on the way.  Gutenberg changed the world forever when he invented mechanical movable type printing.  The industry doesn't really want to change.  There's pressure from publishers not to change.  But that isn't going to stop progress.  It'll be a little slower to happen than maybe it should be, from a technological standpoint, but the change is coming.