Writers in the Storm

By Laura Drake

All of us at WITS have shied away from the Traditional/Indie battle. After all, many have waded into the fray, yelling their opinions at the top of their lungs. When we conceived Writers in the Storm, we pictured it a shelter for writers from the storms that brew in publishing. I believe we’ve succeeded, at least, so far.

But our silence has begun, for me, to sound like avoidance, so I thought I'd put my toe in the waters.

Susan Squires,  New York Times Bestselling friend of mine just decided to publish her next series completely independently. I have to admit, I was a bit surprised at first -- after all, she's made a living for years with New York Big 6 publishers. For me, she's a poster child of Traditional publishing.

She made the decision after much contemplation and challenging of her beliefs:

• She has retired from the nine to five, and frankly doesn't need the advances any longer.
• She's seen her books on a shelf in the bookstores.
• She's had the validation -- won the awards, had the accolades.
• The thought of jumping into another publishing contract, her success or failure at the whim of someone else, just didn't seem right anymore.
• She has a readership, and a large mailing list.

She admitted that the technology was scary. But she felt she had a reputation to maintain, and wasn't willing to trust that to anyone else. So she jumped in. Her first indie published novel is out now. I'm reading Do You Believe in Magic  now, and it is riveting.

While reading the latest from Dean Wesley Smith (you can read it here) I realized something new about why I made the choice I did.

But before you can make the right choice, you need to be clear about your motives. What do you perceive as success? What do you want for your career? How you answer these questions and those below should help make things clearer.

• Are you looking for validation? Someone who is responsible for committing corporate resources, singling you out of the crowd, saying, "You. You, right there. I want your book."
• Are you willing to be edited? Not just line edits, but the structure, order and presentation of characters in your books?
• Are you willing to give up control of the cover, and possibly even the author's name on the cover?
• Do you want a chunk of money up front, or are you taking the long view?

Whichever method you choose, for the love of yourself and your writing, please consider your choices honestly and carefully. We've got a post coming on Wednesday from Susan Spann, literary attorney, to help you define the terms that go into these choices.

But here's the part I don't understand:

Why would a choice you make about your career upset me? I really don't get it.

It's not that I'm not passionate about causes. If there is injustice, hand me a sign and I'll join the picket line. If someone needs help, I've got two willing hands.

But how you publish is an individual choice. My choice affects only me, and my career. So why would that be seen by anyone as a threat or a judgement by me of their choices?

Not to pick on J.A. Konrath -- I've giggled behind my hand at his blog's clever condemnation of NY Publishing. At times I've even nodded my head in agreement. But I don't understand why the  debate has to get vitriolic.

This is our call for détente in the author wars.

Writing is hard. We should be supporting each other.

In the nervous words of Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?"

What are your thoughts on the debate? What questions did you ask yourself before you made your decision? For those of you who have walked both the indie and traditional publishing paths, what do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of each?

Writers In the Storm is delighted to welcome Bob Mayer, one of the premiere writer advocates in publishing today. Bob, along with Jen Talty (his co-founder at Who Dares Wins Publishing) have become very well known voices in "indie" publishing in a very short time.

Here's Bob in his own words...

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Publishing is the Wild West right now, with changes happening daily and most of the prognosticators from the beginning of the year already proven wrong, as they were last year and the year before.  The recent settlement with the Justice Department by several of the Big 6 is a huge game changer.

Jen Talty and I formed Who Dares Wins Publishing in January 2010.  At the time I was looking at it as a sideline, a way to get my Atlantis series back into circulation.  I was busy writing my epic Duty, Honor, Country, a Novel of West Point and the Civil War and editing The Jefferson Allegiance in anticipation of sending them to my agent for sale.  (Jen meanwhile, slaved away full-time for a year and a half building the company).

As 2011 dawned, I had to re-evaluate.  2010 was a year of drastic change.  In January, ebooks constituted roughly 3% of the market.  People, ‘experts’, said they might make it to 5 or maybe even 10% by the end of the year.  They were wildly off.

I had to evaluate based not on where publishing was at the moment, but rather where it was going to be.  So I made the decision to commit to Who Dares Wins Publishing completely.  Considering this is my livelihood, abandoning a proven business model for an unknown model was risky, but I’ve always taken chances and embraced challenges, from West Point to the Infantry to volunteering for the Green Berets and in publishing.  I’m going to use my own sales numbers, not the other authors we have, for the sake of privacy.

In January of 2011 I sold 347 ebooks.

By the end of the year, I sold close to half a million ebooks. 

And I only sell two titles at .99; the rest of my titles range from $2.99 to $4.99, which means they earn 70% royalties on their platforms.   My average income per ebook is roughly $1.50.   We recently published The ShelfLess Book: The Complete Digital Author detailing all we’ve learned in e-publishing.

Here’s another thing few discuss:  the 100% royalty rate of direct sales.  We launched an automated web site thanks to Jen Talty’s hard work that pays dividends in direct sales.

However, I think with all the changes, an indie author has to continue to take chances.  I just signed a deal with Amazon Encore for some backlist titles and with their science fiction imprint, 47 North, for three future titles.

One marketing tool I believe is very effective is to post on other people’s blogs.  People read their own blog.  I think building community is more important than direct marketing.  Making connections with the movers and shakers in the business is also important.  That’s the reason I was just at RT and will be attending Thrillerfest in July.

It might be the Wild West in publishing, but as a former Green Beret, it’s the kind of environment we were trained to thrive in.

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If you haven't ever heard Bob speak, his classes are awesome - here he is talking about e-book pricing and the agency model:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/a8bJyq3nf88]
Are you finding this changing publishing environment freeing or overwhelming? Bob is traveling to Indianapolis today for a speaking engagement, but he promised to stop by so don't be shy with those questions. If you know the answer to someone else's question, feel free to help each other out down in the comments section too. :-)

About Bob

by Fae Rowen

Okay, Jenny Hansen is blog mistress this month, which means that things get a little wild sometimes here at WITS.

I have to admit that I freaked out when I saw my next blog assignment:

Tarot and conference.

"Is Jenny crazy?  She want's me to write about what?"

I fire off an e-mail.  "You mean the RWA National Conference in Anaheim in July?!"

Yep.

My mind spirals off into another galaxy - far, far from my everyday life....

Here's what I fear:

Me sitting in the bar (which I hate to do--I'm no good at socializing) holding a deck of tarot cards.  Jenny working the crowd, pulling in victims writers from all over. Lines snaking around the lobby.

In this horror flick, I look like a deer caught in the headlights, waiting for someone to approach me.  I feel like a Class A-WooWoo-Weirdo.  What if some editor or agent wants a reading...?  CUT!

Very few people know I read tarot cards.

And runes.  And the I Ching.

I've been reading since I was sixteen, but just for trusted friends.  Occasionally.  (Ok, rarely these days.)  After all, can you imagine the looks I'd get at work if they knew the mathematician participated in a non-provable activity?  An occult proceeding?  Can you say SCORN?

Well, they will now if they read this blog.  (Which, thank goodness, they won't.) Or if Jenny has her way in getting my "WooWoo" out of the closet. She wants a post on crystals too...says writers need to know these things for their "research."

My experience in mixing my private hobbies with my everyday life:

Years ago, as a wedding present I reluctantly agreed to be one of the reception "activities" at a friend's wedding.  This friend was in a circle outside my usual acquaintances, or I never would have considered his request.

I sat at a table and read at the reception.  For three solid hours.  I'd never done anything like that before.  Never read for strangers and never so many people.  You would have thought I was giving away free money by looking at the constant line of people chatting and waiting.

I never saw the buffet table.  I didn't even get a piece of cake.  In fact, when I finished with the last person, I looked around and the space was already cleaned up.   And I had thought no one would visit my little table.

For months people I didn't know would come up to me in the grocery store, in a parking lot, in the mall--and want to talk about their reading.  I didn't know these people!  And I certainly didn't remember what their cards had said.

Is Jenny really suggesting I do readings at Conference??

My brain is sufficiently spasmed by the e-mail that I need verbal communication. I call Jenny.

"Yes, I need two blogs from you."

"Just blogs? Two?  Right now?"

"No, one in May and one in June."

"About what?"

"Didn't you get the e-mail?  One about WooWoo in May -- tarot, crystals, whatever you want -- and one about you and conference in June."

My brain begins the long journey back from that far, far away galaxy.

I hear Jenny buzzing in my ear: "Fae, are you there?  Can you write them?"

You bet'cha.  Two separate posts? Nothing about Tarot in the conference post?  Whoopee!  I feel like a pardoned prisoner on death row.

But I have to admit.  As I consider sitting at the bar in the Marriott this summer, it wouldn't hurt to have a deck, or two, in my pocket.  It might even be fun.  I'd certainly meet more people this way than my usual seventh-grade wallflower routine. Trouble is, I wouldn't remember anything afterwards.

That's why Jenny, Laura, and Sharla would need to sit at the table with me.  I'll just need to find a good wig and sunglasses.  And borrow someone else's nametag.

In the meantime, I'll write something about reading Tarot for May and my previous conference experiences for June.

If you attend the RWA National Conference in Anaheim this July and see me in the bar, act like you never read this post.

Has someone ever asked you to write something that made you terrified? Like you were hanging the naked you out for the world to see? Did you write it? (And you survived??) Do you have out-of-the-way talents that creep into your writing? What are they?