Writers in the Storm

WITS is happy to welcome Cynthia D'Alba. And psst, she has a giveaway . :-)

Hi all! Cynthia D’Alba here. Today we’re going to talk about going with a publisher, be it digital first (such as Samhain Publishing) or NYC publisher (like St. Martin’s Press, Harlequin, Penguin, etc) versus Indie Publishing (do-it-yourself, aka self-publishing). I have one short story, Texas Two Step: The Prequel, that I indie published. The rest of my work is with various publishers (Samhain, Running Press, and Cleis.)

If you are relatively new to writing and the publishing world (like the last 2 or 3 years), you might not be aware of how much and how fast this world is changing. I’ve watched the world of “self-publishing” transform from a looked-down-upon sneer to “indie publishing” where writers of all levels of experience, from newbie to established, are exploring the new publishing frontier. Before digital became popular, authors who wanted to self-publish were usually bamboozled by unethical “publishers” who took their money and produced poorly edited, cheap paperbacks. (I realize this is a broad generalization but bear with me.)

With the digital revolution, authors were given direct access to the reader via online stores such as Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Nobles, etc. Writers could hire the most professional editors, the best cover artists, format the book themselves or hire that done, and publish their work to these online stores ready to be purchased by the reader. No driving around with books in the trunk of the car to sell.

I confess that I don’t blink at buying a book at $3.99 or less. Click. Bought. It’s that simple. I probably buy MORE books digitally than I ever bought in print. Those of us in this writing world hear fabulous stories of wealth and riches to be made via indie publishing. Authors report six-figure incomes without a hitch. So the question Laura Drake posed to me was … Why are you using a publisher when you could do all this yourself and make mega bucks? (Okay, she didn’t say megabucks but she did ask the first part of the question!) And it’s a good question!

Today, I read an article in Publisher Weekly that we may be seeing print no longer being the norm even for the big publishers. The pressure on the author and the publisher to get books out faster is changing how our industry works. Every major NYC publisher now has a digital only or digital first line. In fact, I’ll go further and say that when I first started, digital publishing was thought of as second rate at best.

So if readers are demanding faster turnaround for books and willing to the pay the author directly, why did I decide to go with a digital first publisher and not just indie publish my work?

1. Editing. With my publisher I had an experienced editor to work with. Now there are excellent freelance editors out there. You’ll see ads all over the place. I’m sure some of them are better than others, but how would I know? I was a relative newbie author. If I got a hack job from an editor, I don’t believe I would have known it. So the key was research. Lots and lots of research. Talk to other indie authors. Review editor websites. Read the books these editors had worked on. And while I’m researching who is a good editor, I have to also be researching what one pays a good editor. This is going to take time. Unfortunately, some indie authors use a good friend, or a relative, or another inexperienced author to “edit” the work and then pops it up for sale. Then the mistakes begin to surface … misspelled words, missing words, incomplete sentences, story holes, story plotlines unresolved, etc.

Bottom line is, I wanted to write, not spend time researching editors. And while I was new, I wasn’t so wet-behind-the-ears to believe my writing didn’t need much editing!

2. Talented Cover Artists – With my publishing company (Samhain Publishing) I am fortunate enough to have major input into the design of my cover. In fact, the last two (TEXAS TANGO and TEXAS FANDANGO) used a picture I sent them. So the cover department has been receptive even when I didn’t know what I wanted. Somehow my cover artists have been able to take my rambling on the cover art form and pull together exactly my vision, even when my vision wasn’t clear in my own head.

Again, there are independent cover artists for hire. Plus some authors are doing their own covers for their indie published work. Just as with an editor, who do I hire? What do I pay? What if I had a friend who can do it for free or cheap?

I think if I knew what I wanted on the cover, this is the smallest hurdle (for me) when thinking about indie publishing. I’ve seen some fabulous covers produced by freelance artists. But having Samhain's art department behind me on my first book was liberating.

3. Built-In Readership – As a newbie author, readers had never heard of me. Of course I could do lots of advertising, blogging, searching for readers online, participating on forums, etc. To do all the work to get my name out there for the readers “to discover” would be time consuming and possibly expensive. Going with an established publisher gave me a base of readers. Now, these readers may or may not like my book but at least it gave me a good starting point to build a readership.

4. Distribution – With indie publishing, I would be responsible for getting my digital book on all the sites, i.e., Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, All Romance ebooks … shoot, I don’t even KNOW where I need to put my books. With a publisher, they took care of that for me. They got my book all the places it needed to be to be found by readers. In addition, my book is available in print in the Ingram catalog, meaning bookstores COULD stock it if they wanted and the books are available to order for book signings. With indie publishing, getting your book into print and into the Ingram catalog is pretty much impossible.
5. Foreign Copies – Even though I haven’t sold enough to get picked up by a foreign publisher for my books, a book has to be with a US publisher to even have a chance to be picked up for foreign sales. One very well known author who had a best selling indie-published book, sold it to a NYC house based on that fact alone. She was getting interest from foreign publishers but without a US publisher, the foreign publishers wouldn’t move forward. She got a US publisher and the book is now an international best seller. So if you want the option for foreign sales, you have to be with a publisher.
6. Marketing – Now I’ll be the first to admit I don’t take advantage of most of the marketing services Samhain offers me, they do get my book to reviewers, a task that would be another time suck for me to do myself. I am positive there are marketing services Samhain has that I don’t use but that’s my error. I know that my publisher will send Samhain labeled promo items (pens, mouse pads, etc) if I requested. Again, I just haven’t. Still, it is a benefit offered.
7. Conference signings – Conferences (RWA, RT, etc.) are becoming much more friendly to indie authors. However, to participate in a signing as an indie author, I would have to front the expense of printing the books and getting them to the conference and that’s IF the conference allows indie authors to sign. There are changes coming down the pipeline. New and exciting innovations to allow for signing digital books may produce a positive change for book signings in the future.

In a nutshell, I choose to go with a digital first publisher rather than an indie publisher because I wanted to share the post-writing workload. I didn’t want to spend my time researching editors, cover artists, distribution channels, book reviewers, reader locations, etc. I enjoy the marketing (i.e., blogs, chats, Facebook, Twitter, etc) but beyond that, I like having a team behind me.

And I like that I provide employment for others.

There’s nothing wrong with indie publishing and in all likelihood, I’ll do more in the future. But I’ll have an established reader base then and maybe not such an uphill struggle with sales.

About Cynthia & fun stuff ...

Maybe you’re curious about Cynthia D’Alba. Here’s a little more about me: I was born and raised in a small Arkansas town. After being gone for a number of years, I’m thrilled to be making my home back in Arkansas living in a vine-covered cottage on the banks of an eight-thousand acre lake. I started writing on a challenge from my husband in 2006 and discovered having imaginary sex with lots of hunky men was fun.

My first book, Texas Two Step, released in 2012 to outstanding reviews, was a Samhain Publishing best seller. The second book in the Texas Montgomery Mavericks series, Texas Tango, released November 5, 2013, again from Samhain Publishing. In February, 2014, Texas Fandango, a Novella in the Texas Montgomery Series will be released by Samhain Publishing. I am currently at work on book 3 of the Texas Montgomery Mavericks series (Texas Twist).

I love love love to hear from readers and there are lots of ways to find me. Online, you can find me most days at my website or my group blog.

Follow me at Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Goodreads or Pinterest.

or email me at cynthia@cynthiadalba.com

To send me snail mail, write to: Cynthia D’Alba, PO Box 2116, Hot Springs, AR 71914

Now some fun stuff! :-)

In the spirit of Christmas sneaking up on us, I’ll pick among the comments for someone to take home a western-themed ornament. Here’s just a sample…

Plus, I'm doing a TEXAS TANGO Jewelry-Themed Rafflecopter Giveaway. Since we are on a WordPress.com blog, the widget can’t be embedded. BUT if you click HERE, you’ll be magically transported to my Facebook page and a back-up Rafflecopter widget.  Also check out my personal blog for other places you can enter! Here’s the loot you can win…

AND I have swag for the asking! But when it’s gone, it’s gone. Pens, jar openers, postcards, bookmarks, trading cards…just go by my contact page and send me a note.

Thanks for coming by! Be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win one of the Christmas ornaments!

By Susan Spann

For the past few months, my guest posts here at Writers in the Storm have taken a look at different aspects of the author estate plan. This month, we’ll finish the series with a problem every author faces: selecting the heirs.

In some cases, choosing who will inherit an author’s copyrights isn’t difficult – for example, when the author has a spouse but no children, children but no spouse, or simply wants to leave the estate to charity. For most of us, however, inheritance issues require at least a little thought.

Let’s take a look at some of the available options you might–or might not—have already considered:

1.         One heir, one copyright – splitting the works. When heirs don’t get along, authors sometimes consider splitting copyright ownership by leaving each heirs full ownership of a different copyright. A spouse might receive some of the works, and the author’s children each end up with ownership of a different novel. Generally speaking, this is not a good idea, especially if the author writes a series. Conflicts among the heirs may tie the works up indefinitely, and publishers don’t want to contract with different heirs for different works. As a general rule, splintering ownership of a literary estate creates more conflict – and more chance of everything going out of print – than treating your body of work as a single “property” or estate.

2.         All heirs, all copyrights – treating the copyrights as a bundle. When authors want multiple heirs to share the benefits of the author’s literary estate, the best (and easiest) way to address the issue is to name a literary executor and/or “managing heir” who has responsibility for managing the entire literary estate, and then leaving each of the other heirs an “undivided percentage interest” in the literary estate as a whole.

In simpler language, an author who has three children might name the oldest child the literary executor and/or “managing heir” (the person who will work with the lawyer or literary executor to manage the estate) and leave all three children an undivided 1/3 ownership interest in the literary estate (meaning the author’s copyrights and the right to receive a 1/3 share of royalties and other income generated by the author’s works). Sometimes, authors prefer to leave the managing heir a slightly larger share, or to split the percentages unevenly – all of which are normal variations on the theme.

This way, if one novel or series generates more income than the others, the inheritance isn’t split in a lopsided manner. This is the most common, and usually the simplest, way of splitting an author’s literary estate.

3.         Life estates and multi-generational heirs. Sometimes an author wants to leave the copyright income to one set of adult heirs and also to ensure that the literary estate will pass to a younger set of heirs (for example, the author’s grandchildren or great-grandchildren) at some future date. The author accomplishes this through a “life estate.

A life estate is a type of inheritance in which a person inherits an asset (in this example, the right to receive a share of the income from copyrights) for as long as that person lives, and upon the named heir’s death, the asset automatically passes to another person (called a “remainderman”) named in the author’s will or trust.

An example of “life estate” language might look like this: “I leave ownership of my copyrighted works, and the right to receive all income and profits therefrom, to my son George for his lifetime, and thereafter to all of my living grandchildren in equal, undivided shares.”

Authors should always consult an attorney before attempting to draft or create multi-generational inheritances and life estates in estate planning documents. In many states, special legalese is required to create a life estate and other special estate planning interests. “Estates and Future Interests” are a special law school course – sometimes taught as part of property law as well as estate planning classes – and the attempted gift can fail if the language isn’t properly worded. Even worse, a person can inadvertently create one of several rare but tricky “future interests” that causes a truly difficult probate snarl. If you want to create a specialized estate plan, it’s worth the time to find an experienced, reasonably priced attorney in your area who understands the special needs of intellectual property (copyright) inheritance issues.

4.         Charities. Leaving part or all of your estate to charity is a noble, and often beneficial, act. Many of my clients do include favored charities in their wills and trusts, though charitable in the author estate plan can create some unique and unusual issues.

First, most charities aren’t set up to manage copyrights and other intellectual property interests. An author’s literary estate might bring in thousands of dollars a year, money a charity might well need and put to excellent use. But if the charity’s work is focused on fighting hunger by equipping and training individuals in developing countries, that charity might not have the time, staff, and capacity to manage copyrights on the side. In many cases, it might even cost the charity more to manage the copyrights than the literary estate is worth.

If you want to leave a portion of your estate to charity, consider leaving the charity a share of your liquid assets (cash, or the proceeds of selling stocks and bonds) or a percentage-based interest in the income from your literary estate—but placing the burden of managing the literary works on a different heir (who should probably also receive a percentage share, or the right to payment, in compensation for managing the literary estate). The less work a charity has to do to manage its “inheritance,” the better the organization can use the funds to accomplish the charitable purpose you intended to support.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series on author estate plans and how to manage them! Join me next month, when I’ll start a new and exciting series to carry us into 2014!  

If you have questions about this or any other author estate planning issues, please do ask in the comments – I love to help!

About Susan

Susan Spann is a publishing attorney and author from Sacramento, California. Her debut mystery novel, CLAWS OF THE CAT (Thomas Dunne Books, July 2013), is the first in a series featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori. Susan blogs about writing, publishing law and seahorses at http://www.SusanSpann.com. Find her on Twitter @SusanSpann or on Facebook.

 

By Kimberly Brock

I think writers of any ilk can benefit from a healthy appreciation of setting, but regional – particularly southern writers – are haunted by our connection to, love of, loss of, and clawing crawling, desperate journey back to – the land.

Oh, I wish I was in Dixie…away, away. Every song is a lullaby of going home. We close our eyes and dream of the old house in the valley. We contemplate a city skyline, thinking only of the ancient ridges that surrounded freshly turned lowlands where we walked a row as a child. That old scene where Scarlet O’Hara’s father warns her that land is the only thing that matters? We took that old man seriously and so, when we write our stories, do our characters. Their whole world, how our characters view their circumstances, why they struggle, why they rejoice – it’s all reflected in the setting.

Pick up any piece of southern fiction and you will understand what Lee Smith meant when she said of regional literature, “There is an intimate identification with landscape. Setting is so important that it often defines the lives and possibilities of its characters…Place is the central defining factor of southern writing. There’s just simply more there, there.”

In writing THE RIVER WITCH, I knew Roslyn’s story would end up on the island – I knew she would go into a kind of exile. I imagined Roslyn’s need for a kind of isolation, and her need for great beauty, which led me to the Georgia Coast. I wanted it to be a place that would keep her off balance so she’d have to struggle to understand it and meet its demands. I needed a place that Roslyn believed was a complete departure. My character’s story is also the story of this environment and if you look at one, you will inevitably discover something about the other.

I’d written a good part of the first draft before Roslyn’s past and her childhood memories of Glenmary, Tennessee, began to surface. There, I found a people rooted for centuries in hard ground. Ancient mountains that would not be moved. Do you see these places? Then you see the people who inhabit them. I came to understand these were the characteristics at the core of Roslyn, this place defined all the ways she was at odds with herself, and as with everything else in the novel, these seemingly contradictory environments and cultures of Appalachia and Coastal Georgia would serve as mirrors for one another – just as the characters tend to hold up mirrors to one another. Some of this was written intentionally, but a great deal of it evolved with the story.

I’d always been fascinated by the idea that the Sea Islands shift and change, the idea of the alligators roaring season, the romance of the great live oaks, and then there was the element of superstition that lent itself to Roslyn’s haunting. The island was like going back to the mire from which we all emerge. I chose the island setting so she could fight her way back from her loss, physically and psychologically. That’s what Roslyn’s character ultimately faced – what each of us, ANY character ANY place, faces – a transformation that leads to resolution. She had to learn to shift and change to survive, just like the land beneath her feet. Her connection to place informs the reader of Roslyn’s internal journey through metaphor, but it also grounds the reader firmly in a compelling reality, one that every reader will envision for themselves. We are called to whatever away, away means home. To me, the true power of setting is that it gets to the heart of our human search for belonging.

Barbara Kingsolver said it best when she spoke of setting. “I have places from which I tell my stories. So do you, I expect. We sing the song of our home because we are animals…Among the greatest of all gifts is to know our place.”

Ready to sing your own song of home and address setting in your stories? Maybe it doesn’t come naturally? Here are four brass-tack techniques I use in my own writing:

1. Reveal setting through action – Let your description unfold as a character moves through the scene. Consider which details your character would notice immediately, and which might register more slowly. Let your character encounter those details interactively. Use action verbs to set the scene. But be selective and careful not to bury the scene in detail.

2. Reveal setting through a character’s level of experience – What your character knows will directly influence what she sees. Different characters will perceive the same surroundings in very different ways, based on their familiarity (or lack thereof) with the setting.

3. Reveal setting through the emotions of your character – What we perceive is profoundly influenced by what we feel. The same should be true for our characters. Filtering a setting through a character’s feelings can profoundly influence what the reader “sees.”

4. Reveal setting through the senses –

• Visual – we make decisions and take action based on what we see.
• Emotions are affected by what we hear (music, the sound of a person’s voice, the whistle of a train, tone of voice).
• Smell evokes memories (baking, perfume, new-car leather, the odor of wet dog).
• Touch evokes a sensory response.
• As in real life, “taste” images should be used sparingly and appropriately.

What techniques work for you when writing setting? Are there examples of setting that became its own character in novels you love? What are your thoughts on a sense of place in fiction and its bearing on the journey to a resolution for a character? Share them here!

About Kimberly

Kimberly Brock is the author of “The River Witch” and recipient of the Georgia Author of the Year Award 2013. Her short works can be found in the anthologies Summer in Mossy Creek, and Sweeter Than Tea. Formerly a special needs educator and actor, Kimberly is a regular contributor to several blogs dedicated to the craft of writing. She serves as the Blog Network Coordinator for She Reads, a national online book club, actively spearheading several women's literacy efforts through the She Reads Gives Back campaign. She is a certified Pilates instructor and owner of Kimberly Brock Pilates. She lives in the foothills of north Atlanta with her husband and three children, and is currently at work on her next novel.