Lots of updates lately. To start, Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings is out today. You can check out my review of it on my Speculative Fiction Examiner page here, along with a review of The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, an upcoming release from Pyr. Great reads, both of them.
If you caught my post yesterday about Scott Nicholson’s blog tour, you can also check out an interview with him on the Examiner page as well. It includes ostriches.
A friend I met at the same conference as my agent has asked me to talk to her writing group about literary agents and my experiences in getting signed with one. Haven’t quite pinned the date down when that will happen, but it’s creating an odd mix of fun anticipation and the lingering doubt that people actually want to hear what I have to say. At least speaking in front of groups is something I’ve always been decent at, versus having to carry a bucket around in case stage fright upsets my delicate stomach. Anyone out there have particular questions about agents? I likely can’t answer everything, but I’ll do my best with what I’ve learned and experienced so far.
And on a final note, check out this article (Warning: naughty words) by Paul Carr about the disturbing trend he is seeing in how writers are treating publishers in the face of the rising popularity of eBooks and self-publishing. Then come back here for musings on the topic.
Back? Great.
I agree a lot with what Carr says. Even as eBooks and readers become commonplace, publishers continue to play vital roles in the bookish world. Their specific duties may shift some and the business model must certainly adapt, but I believe there will be a need for publishers to continue to exist for a goodly while.
In my perspective, I’ve pursued publication with the belief that being self-published comes with a lot of hard-to-overcome stigmas, such as a perceived lack of legitimacy, book stores not being willing to stock any of your novels, and the fact that, yes, anyone can be self-published, so it says nothing about the quality of your work. Now, you might argue that you don’t have to care about getting books into stores. Just promote it online and reap bigger profits than you would through advances and royalties. The quality of the work should speak for itself, and all that. Sure. Valid statements in some cases, but there’s a big part of me that still feels I’ll have a much higher chance of success if I am published through “official” channels. Maybe that’s a bias I’ll eventually have to let go, but the truth is, I want a publisher to believe in my book and fledgling writing career enough to invest in it. Yes, eBooks hold a lot of potential, and I plan to take full advantage of that, but it’s a tool to add to the box, rather than a reason to toss the box away entirely.
The other thing I’ve noticed is that the folks listed in Carr’s article who are turning to self-publishing are authors who are already established and also are skilled at marketing themselves. They know the business well enough to keep the momentum going that previous publications got started for them.
As Carr puts it:
…there are really only two types of person for whom it makes a jot of sense to tear up their book deal and abandon the professionalism, billion-dollar print market, and immeasurable cachet of traditional publishing. The first are highly skilled self-promoters like Godin who have successfully identified their entire (niche) audience and who know they will only ever sell a certain number of copies of their books to that same audience. Marketers like Godin tend to make the bulk of their money with speaking gigs anyway – books are just a throwaway promotional tool, full of ideas that even they admit will be out of date by this time next week. Might as well take the money and keep running.
The second type of person is more tragic: authors who, for whatever reason, fear they’re about to be dumped by their publisher (or at best paid a tiny advance for their next book) and who want to save face by using innovation as an excuse.