And I Say, “Hey, What’s Going On?”

Boy, aren’t we all happy no one plays that song anymore.

Just wanted to update you all on a few things. First, I’m currently a slush reader for Niteblade Magazine. I have always had interest in the publishing and editing side of writing, and decided to work from the ground up. It’s been an enlightening experience so far. As I go through the submissions, I keep wondering about the current way publishing is working. I can’t make any definite designs till I see how an issue I helped with is published. And anything I think will be too long to post here, so I will most likely have a post about it in the future.

Next, I just got news that I will be a panelist at Anthology 2011. I’ll be on two panels: one on the use of myth, religion, and folklore in fiction; the other is on MFA programs. If you are a speculative fiction writer or fan, and you have some free time in November, you will want to check it out. It is shaping up to be a great start to a new con.

Finally, I’m going through all my notes and starting a massive writing war strategy. I have a lot of story ideas that are going to be connected. So, what I’m doing is trying to map out as far ahead as I can on all of them instead of going book by book, story by story. While I’m doing that, I’m going through my backlog of half-starts and rough drafts and cleaning them up. I know not much else will get out this year, but I want to try for multiple acceptances next year. While I do that next year, I hope to have a novel in the works to have ready to start going out as soon as I can to use the publication momentum to the fullest effect.

I’m hoping to get recordings of the panels in November and post them here. If not I’ll still give rundowns of the events, especially the panels, for you all.

Pottermore’s Effect On Upcoming Copyright Deadline

I’m not sure if this has been written about, yet, but on Monday I read an interesting article from Publisher’s Weekly about an upcoming deadline in a subject that strict fear into most new writers, if not some established ones as well.

Copyrights.

This article talked about a little discussed clause in the 1998 “Sonny Bono” act. You know, the one that let Disney hold onto Mickey Mouse for a few more decades. To be honest, I took a copyright class in college and I forgot about it too. The clause allows authors do everything from renegotiate royalities to complete reclaimation of rights of the work no matter the current contract 35 years after publication. Now these are for all works published from 1978 and on. So next year will be the first year in which rights can start to be completely reverted back to authors.

Here is where I think J.K. Rowling is about to gain favor with many of the authors that panned her over the years.

If Pottermore, her online store and virtual World of Harry Potter, becomes a successful model for authors selling their books themselves (and not just short term where all current fans go and rack up millions of downloads in hours, but  there are enough constant sales to keep it functioning and make a profit), we could see the possibility of many well-known authors exercising this Termination Clause and setting up their own shop.

A quick glimpse of genre fiction around 1978 shows us this:

Stephen King only had three novels, plus Rage under the Richard Bachmann pseudonym, out before that. It was the year that The Stand and Night Shift were published. Piers Anthony released the second Xanth novel. Terry Brooks just published The Sword of Shannara last year. Peter Straub will publish his third book next year as V.C. Andrews and Douglas Adams are going to make their publishing debut. That’s all I know of off hand, but I also know that it is also not long after that the 80′s horror boom hit publishers.

Can you imagine if these authors, or their estates, took back the rights and re-published themselves and continued that trend as each subsequent book came up for the Termination Clause? And then all the authors that came after them and their books?

Eldritch Thoughts Hits 100

Monday was a good day for me. I logged onto Eldritch Thoughts and saw I hit the 100 follower mark. At the time, I had 102 posts. Take out all the none quote posts out and I have had roughly a new follower for every post since I restarted the project. I’m absolutely amazed! Add to that the people following on the Facebook page and the Twitter account, and there were 193. All I can say is thank you to all of you reading.

The project started as just a way to get my mind back into writing and creating ideas after my transplant. The first version was crazy as I tried to build a storyline under the humor. Bad idea. It quickly got to the point when I was more concerned about mapping out plot points that the humor fizzled. The few that read it then were there for the humor and nothing else. Why mess with a good thing?

After a break, I came back to it. I moved it to Tumblr and kept the twitter and face book accounts open as feeds. I didn’t want to alienate that already enjoyed it. I wanted to give them better content. But I had learned something from my blog here. It is also something that I have been lacking the last few months.

Consistency.

Back before the transplant, I did my best to have two posts a week. Tuesdays and Fridays new there was going to be something here for them. After I started doing that, I saw the hits climb to my best so far. When I decided to re-start Eldritch Thoughts, I wanted to see if could make it “Appointment Blogging,” for lack of a better term. One post a day, at a time during the day when I thought most people I know would catch it. So I set a schedule and I stuck to it. Since then, people keep finding it and many of the re-blogs, re-tweets, and likes are around the time it posts. Is it working? I can’t say except anecdotally.

I’m at a point now, though, where I’m thinking of the future of Eldritch Thoughts. When I started it, I had the thought of creating small humor books a lot like the Deep Thoughts books that inspired the project. Technically, I could compile what I’ve done so far and have enough for a similar book. Of course I wouldn’t do that. I’d add new stuff that no ones seen as well. Anyways, I really thought if I did, I would have to do it myself. I can’t think of a publisher that would do a humorous horror coffee-table book. Unfortunately, I can’t find a service that does the small books. So I have a feeling, I’m going to have to start looking for an actual publisher to print this book. It may be a while until the book comes, but it is next big goal for Eldritch Thoughts.

And again, thank you to all that have been reading. You all keep me going to give you more of what you love.

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Designer Jeans or Apps: The Venture Into Solving E-book Prices

E-books, e-books, e-books…why is there all this drama over e-books? Well, I know why there is, I just wonder if there should be the amount of it that is always present. Two articles I read recently (here and here) basically were about the outrage of the ebook adopters at Big Publishing on two very key areas: price and presence. Now I could talk about the latter all day. In fact I have a few times on here about my thoughts on e-books, and I may again once I jump in that water. But I want to focus on price because I think it is the unspoken variable that everyone is trying to solve for X and not always getting the right answer.

Pre-kindle days, your book would come out in either hardcover, with a $20ish-$30ish price tag; trade paperback, with a $12-$20 price tag; or mass market paperback, with a solid $7.99 price tag (maybe shave or add a dollar for the very short of the very long book).

*Note: I’m not getting into children’s-YA prices because they are not what I know and cost less.

If you were lucky to get a hardcover release (and yes, it is hard to get a hardcover release unless you are an established, successful writer, or a celebrity that a publisher can bank in fans splurging for an expensive book), then over time you will get a mass-market and/or trade edition. They do this because they just know not every one would be able to get the hardcover edition. It also allows time to fix any typos that slip in (and yes, publishers are not infallible and typos happen) so the obviously wider audience that will read the less expensive version has the best possible experience when reading. It was a great system. No one really had complaints except wondering why some did or didn’t get hardcover releases. It was a system publishing itself around.

Enter Kindle and e-books. Obviously, there is no longer a new for multiple versions of e-books. So how do we figure the price?

Big Publishing, being built around the 2-3 edition model of the books has higher prices that are in a sense a “digital copy” discount price. They are treating them the same way as if they were Amazon, bought a butt-load of books for a discount, so they could then put their own discount price and still make money.

Self, indie, and small publishing are going for the “App Store” pricing to get more of the impulse buying crowds. It gets a lot of there books out there, but you won’t have the same total profit unless it is incredibly popular, which is something no writer or publisher will know definitely until it’s out there.

Now, I’m sure the pragmatists, like myself, had the knee-jerk reaction of “split the difference.” But there has to be a reason to the pricing, which I think is the real problem. Right now we are caught in a “Jean Zone” where Big publishing is the designer jeans and everyone else is the Wal-mart brands: they are the exact same jeans, you are just paying for a name.

So how do we get the name out of the equation? First we have to remember what we are selling. We are not selling an app and we are not selling a hard cover book. But was are selling a book. In the age of iTunes, we no longer have to by full albums. From that model came apps, where single usages were cheaper than the more complex, multi-use apps. See where I’m going?

Books are a single experience. So a lot of ebook adopters, I think, see them the same as the latest single or new Angry Birds spin off. But they long, dynamic experiences. So if many game apps can go as high as $5.99 and most mmp books are at $7.99, $5.99 – $6.99 does not see like that bad a compromise. I’m sure the $2.99 people are going to hate me for saying it, but that low a price really is just a little much, especially for brand new books. I could see something like all books pre-1985 (completely arbitrary point in the past) getting around $2.99 – $3.99, but to just go there seems like you don’t care enough about your work, your art, to be decently compensated for everything you give up for your audience.

As Craig Ferguson says, “I look forward to your letters.”

SHU WPF Spotlight Series: Many Genres, One Craft edited by Michael A. Arnzen and Heidi Ruby Miller

Title: Many Genres, One Craft
Editor: Michael A. Arnzen and Heidi Ruby Miller
Genre: Reference, Writing
Publisher: Headline Books
Pages: 384
ISBN: 978-0-938467-08-3

If you are a writer, new or seasoned, you know exactly how many different kinds of books are out there to help you with craft. Not only that, but then there are all the books by different authors telling you how they write.

“So, what is special about this book?” I hear you say.

There is a lot that is special about it. First, it is a primer for the experience of a MFA program. Which makes sense as it is a product of the Seton Hill University Writing Popular Fiction program. Every essay is written by either published alums, current or former mentors and teachers of the program, and special guests that visited during a Residency. You can see a whole list of the contributors at the book’s website. As you read each of them, you realize that, while you have a succinct essay, the depth of knowledge and understanding in them can in many cases be deeper than whole books written on that same subject. I would almost consider them the teachers notes to a complete course.

Second, while it comes from a genre fiction background, it’s a book that any writer will find helpful. The title states this to the reader. The first section of the book is about the craft of writing. No matter what you write, this unifies writers of every ilk. Each essay always goes that small step further than any other on the subjects of style, characters, setting, plot, etc., if not completely original. One such essay of the later is “Don’t Be a Bobble-Head, and Other Bits of Guidance” by Timons Esaias. Just reading it over not only will strengthen your own writing, but see how frequently even the best writers of any field make simple mistakes.

The last section of the book is all about the life of the writer. I think this is the most important section of the book, because no one tells you it actually like to be a writer. What you have to do, what you have to think of each day. Most people see writing simply as an art. It is that, but it is also a profession. Just about every other field will teach you consciously or unconsciously teach you about that profession in conjunction with education in that field. A trade mark of the Seton Hill WPF program of teaching it studies about the publishing industry is branded into this book by doing the same for its reader. Tips for promotion, getting an agent, getting reviewed (and dealing with it), finding time to write, and more will help every kind of writer know how to make sure there work gets the attention it deserves in every stage: from idea to published text.

Finally, even it genre section is useful to even those who feel they write “literary” or “contemporary” fiction. Both informative and instructive, each essay explains conventions of all the genres. They are not “how-to write X genre” essays, but even deeper craft essays. Mary SanGiovanni’s essay, “Dark and Story Nights: Mood and Atmosphere in Horror,” while a terrific treatise on atmosphere key role in horror fiction, can be used in situations outside of horror. Albert Wendland’s “Description on the Edge: The Sublime in Science Fiction” can be a key text for any writer on understanding how to describe in a story that feels natural, like the reader feels like they are in the story. Even writers of contemporary fiction have to describe things, places, and more that their readers don’t know. They have to be just as effective a science fiction and fantasy writers describing what doesn’t exist.

At a time where not everyone can afford numerous books to help there writing, there is a need for an all purpose book. This is it and probably the best one out there. But it is also something else. It is a testament to the fact that no genre is better, more special, or more worthy than any other. Literature is literature and it’s practitioners must have all the same skills to be successful and entertaining to the world audience.