2/20: Dreams, Quarters, Feet, and Firings

Image via Wikipedia

This morning I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock and promptly went back to sleep. Then, not only did I dream that I actually woke up and got out of bed (dragged a comb across my head...), I also dreamed that it was actually Saturday and I didn't need to get up anyway, then ran around feeling all good about getting up early on the weekend before actually waking up and realizing I was forty-five minutes behind schedule.

I seriously think my subconscious has it in for me.

*

Last week, I appeared on  Joyce Estey's monthly radio program Educationally Speaking (accompanied by professor and poet BJ Ward, author Jessica Cooper, and poets Nick Heacock and Angela Chiu), during which I read a slightly truncated version of my creative nonfiction short story A Quarter at a Time, which can currently be read in its entirety at Eric's Hysterics. It was a fun experience, and it reminded me that I need to get myself back on Father Scardo's show as soon as possible. Perhaps a post-Oscar movie chat with Scardo and guests in between speed metal and classic punk tracks?

*

*

Also sent in the signed contracts for another published short story. The Other Foot, which I just recently read along with a gathering of other authors at Warren County Community College this past year, has been selected to appear in the latest anthology from Portable Press, Uncle John’s Flush Fiction. Should be out in bookstores in April, but I would much prefer it if you bought in on Amazon via the link above. That way, I get a taste - and I do love to taste.

*

*

I was laid off twice from the same job.


I know I'm not alone in this, but it still embarrasses me to utter this phrase. Maybe it's because the hidden context is that I was naive enough to think that somebody I worked with for over a decade would actually show consideration... and that I was so naive twice.


Both times I was laid off for circumstances beyond my control. Much of the reasons given for my first pink slip stemmed from my employer's habit of my workforce being almost exclusively comprised of the teenage sons of friends of his and college interns, and that at the time of my dismissal I was running a warehouse full of lighting equipment and a fleet of six vehicles with a workforce comprised of one employee who couldn't drive stick.


I bowed out gracefully, kept a positive relationship with the company, occasionally did the odd freelance job, and roughly a year later I received a call from my old boss apologizing for letting me go, admitting that I was understaffed and unsupported, and asked me to come back. I probably should have said no, but the money was good, and the familiarity factor was there as well. Might as well get paid for a job I already know forward and back.


Roughly three years later the economy blew up, and I got the second layoff literally two months after being told that I was the company's most valuable employee that would be the last to go if things ever got bad. It turned out that I was the second to go: his quick solution to budget problems was to fire the top paid senior employees and keeping the low-wage underlings, including an obnoxious NYU film student who no one wanted to work on set with, and a punk who was obsessed with knives and thought he was a Ninja.


I'm sure it all worked out for the best. I politely burned that bridge last year in case I was ever tempted to go for a third round, and every now and then I hear from old contacts that the condition of the packages and equipment going out now is noticeably substandard to what it was like under me. I'd be lying if I said that didn't make me somewhat happy. I guess you get what you pay for.


Not that I'm bitter. Unemployment actually gave me a chance to go back to school, and I traded the completely shitty job I took after it for the amazingly awesome job I have now. But it's always good to ponder past decisions and their consequences.

Related articles

• Blender Alarm Clock (ubergizmo.com)
• Author Appearance: S. Michael Wilson on Educationally Speaking with Joyce Estey (authorsmw.wordpress.com)
• Publishing News: My Short Story Gets Flushed (authorsmw.wordpress.com)

Amazon Puts 70% Royalty in Place for DTP Publishing

Image via CrunchBase

Amazon Puts 70% Royalty in Place for DTP Publishing

Well, it looks like Amazon might be dragging the big publishing companies into the new technology once again.

One of my main complaints with eBooks has always been that the publishing companies were raking in extra cash at the expense of both the artist and the consumer: with eBooks being sold at the same or similar price as physical books in most cases, publishers were successfully eliminating printing and shipping costs, but without passing the those savings onto to the artist through larger royalties, or the consumer with lower prices.

Tackling this issue has been a long time coming. The massive writer's strike in the entertainment industry a couple of years ago was over very similar circumstances; distribution companies were tapping into extra income streams through new media distribution channels (such as streaming video and video on demand), but were being extremely vague about these new ventures when it came to sharing royalties with writers under contracts written up before the explosion of communications technology advancements. It is actually shocking that book publishers have been able to deflect similar arguments and concerns for so long.

Now, with Amazon offering 70% royalties for sales on books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, Amazon is effectively forcing the publisher's hand on their sketchy pricing policies regarding new technology book sales, while also easing criticisms of their price reduction policies. This should not only improve writer confidence in releasing works in eBook format, but the lower pricing involved with the royalty shift should also result in increased book sales. Of course, Kindle sales might also increase a bit, which I'm sure is one of the main motivating factors behind the move.

I'm sure a lot of people in the industry will have some very persuasive and logical arguments on why this new royalty scale for eBook publishing is a bad thing. But I seriously doubt any of them will be able to convince me that either the publisher or the artist will stand to lose any money.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Amazon begins new royalty program for Kindle books (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Summary Box: Amazon drops Kindle price to $189 after Barnes & Noble cuts Nook price to $199 (taragana.com)
• E-books: Royalties vs. respect (cbc.ca)

The Holocaust Ended? In Jeannette Katzir's "Broken Birds", Her Mother Brings It With Her To Los Angeles

Jeannette Katzir's struggle to get Broken Birds: The Story of My Momila published serves as yet another example of why "self-publishing" should be treated as a legitimate form of literary output, and not looked down upon by industry insiders. Publishers more concerned with market trends than exceptional writing or storytelling are constantly passing over books and authors that do not easily fit in whatever niche markets the publishers and agents are gearing towards that particular quarter.

This focus on markets is understandable as far as the business end of publishing is concerned, but adds doubt to the argument that self-published authors aren't "real" authors because they haven't proven themselves by passing through the various filters of the system. For every book rejected for inferior writing, there is undoubtedly one (if not more) passed over merely because it isn't the right time, or sales in that genre are currently lackluster.

Keep this story in mind the next time you consider passing over a Self-Published book because it isn't a "real" book. Some might resort to self-publishing because they couldn't get past the editor, but there are just as many that couldn't make it past the publicist.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Related articles by Zemanta

• John Edgar Wideman, Literary Lion, Chooses Lulu Over Traditional Publishers (huffingtonpost.com)
• Turning down Publishers to publish for Kindle - Konrath does it again (ireaderreview.com)
• Self-Publishing Just Got Even Easier (slog.thestranger.com)

Are The Children Our Publishing Future?

Image via Wikipedia

Harlan Coben to write Young Adult Novels

It seems like a lot of authors are making the switch to teen audiences these days. Harlan Coben signs a three-book deal to write about a teenager attempting to expose a conspiracy behind his family, F. Paul Wilson has a new series of young Repairman Jack novels on the way, and the list continues to grow. And it isn't just books, either. The next batch of James Bond movies are going to focus on a young, teenage Bond (presumably minus the martinis and gratuitous sex), and have you see the new Doctor Who? More like Doogie Who-ser, M.D. Of course, it isn't unusual for Hollywood to tone everything down to a broader PG-13 audience when things get tight, but at this point I'm waiting for Dan Brown to announce a new young adult series featuring a teenage Langdon skipping his study hall to chase down adolescent Templars.

So what gives? Have teenagers suddenly grown as a literary market? It seems kind of contradictory that Young Adult sections at bookstores and libraries are doubling in size at the same time that parents and other irrational busybodies are crying out that texting and twitter are raising a generation of functional illiterates. Then again, I've always been wary of the naysayers who claim that the advancement of communications technology actually has teenagers communicating less. But even if I disagree with that, can I deny that teens are spending more and more time online, texting, tweeting, messaging, and playing video games that becoming eerily realistic? How can teenagers squeeze all of this in and still have time to read the last Young Adult series? They must be, as I would hope the publishing industry has sales numbers to back their big push to enlarge the YA market.

Harry Potter and Twilight might be a major reason for the move. All of those young kids who started reading the first Harry Potter have grown u along with the scar-faced wizard, and have joined forces with the equally obsessive (if not more so) Twilight crowd. With such a large fan base of teenagers devouring Atlas Shrugged-sized tomes about glittery vampires and dysfunctional warlock apprentices, and spending great wads of cash on anything tying in with the books and movies in the process, there is definitely money to be made. But how does that translate into bigger book sales overall, especially in a recession that has even the major publishers scrambling to justify their roles in the marketplace?

My theory (and I'm sure it isn't mine alone) is that the blending of technologies into the world of print, far from being the death knell of the publishing industry as many have predicted, has actually begun to breath new life into it. While eBooks and eReaders have yet to take over the marketplace, they are definitely gaining in popularity, and have helped make written works more easily accessible to those with powerful handheld communication devices, and we all know how much teenagers love their powerful handheld communication devices. Add this to the growing number of teenagers actively reading or writing in the ever growing blogosphere, and you have a new generation of children actually being led to the literary world by the very machines we feared would destroy it.

So yes, we will most likely see an increasing number of established authors jumping gleefully into the Young Adult pool. And as eReaders and ePublishers begin integrating animation and interactive features into their eBook releases, more and more kids are going to be tricked into thinking that books are just as cool, if not cooler, than 3D movies and PSP.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Instill a Love of Reading in your Teens (connectwithyourteens.blogspot.com)
• F. Paul Wilson's young adult novel Jack: Secret Circles (tor.com)
• Getting Good Reads To Incarcerated Teens (chicagoist.com)

Publishers: eBooks + Libraries = Bad (For Them)

Image via Wikipedia
Trashing eBooks in one form or another seems to be all the rage in the publishing industry these days. You can't really blame publishers; it must be hard when you wake up one morning and find that POD services and eBooks have suddenly obliterated your virtual monopoly on the market. But as the debates rage, a lot of attitudes and philosophies towards the reading public that were lurking below the surface are being eagerly aired for public consumption.

Take, for example, this quote from Eric Hellman's blog, Go To Hellman, about Macmillan CEO Sargent:

"That is a very thorny problem", said Sargent. In the past, getting a book from libraries has had a tremendous amount of friction. You have to go to the library, maybe the book has been checked out and you have to come back another time. If it's a popular book, maybe it gets lent ten times, there's a lot of wear and tear, and the library will then put in a reorder. With ebooks, you sit on your couch in your living room and go to the library website, see if the library has it, maybe you check libraries in three other states. You get the book, read it, return it and get another, all without paying a thing. "It's like Netflix, but you don't pay for it. How is that a good model for us?"Eric Hellman, Go To Hellman, Mar 2010

Libraries + eBooks equal free Netflix? Well, if you ignore that libraries don't loan stuff out of state, that libraries are free lenders regardless, and a host of other problems with this comparison... well, it just shows how good the major publishers are at ignoring a lot of the realities inherent with the advancement of the digital age. The short answer to his question "How is that a good model for us?" It isn't. Unfortunately for you, however, the decision about how the future will unfold isn't up to you.

This kind of attitude towards the market is frighteningly indicative of how the producers of consumer goods (not just publishing) view the structure of the open market in our increasingly consumer-driven world. It used to be all about Supply and Demand; We demand, They supply. But these days corporations have grown accustomed to manipulating both sides of the equation. So when they suddenly find themselves unable to dictate exactly how and when we will be able to purchase what they want us to buy, things start to get a bit chaotic, a bit more crazy, and a lot less logical.

You think these major publishers are pulling their hair out over Amazon because it has successfully increased book sales by drastically increasing accessibility? No, they hate Amazon partially because they've ruined the "Buy in Bulk From Us and Bargain Bin What You Don'T Sell" business model, and mostly because they have given the public what publishers have increasingly attempted to deny you: choice.

Ever wonder why when you walk through a Borders, you see three copies of the same books always lining the shelves? Or why you can never find what you are looking for, unless it isn't the newest "Best Seller" or hot celebrity author? They have enough room to stock ten times as many titles as they do. Why don't they? Because the publishers and distributors have a say in what they order and what they stock. The fact is, over fifty percent of the titles sold by Amazon in any given year aren't even available in these borderline monopoly bookstore chains, and you can bet the big boy publishers don't fare well in that equation.

There's a lot to think about in this and other statements by Sargent in this must-read article. Like how Sargent thinks the big publishers will survive because their too unprofitable to fail, or how eBooks are bad because they don't deteriorate and force people to buy new copies (nothing spells profits like planned obsolescence). But what it really gets you thinking about is how these companies aren't concerning themselves with how to compete in a new marketplace. Instead, they are devoting their energies to trying to keep the marketplace the way it is, to somehow hobble the evolution of eCommerce and an ever-changing market so it adheres to their rapidly antiquated business model. They've realized that it has come down to either Us or Them.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hellman, Eric: eBooks in Libraries a Thorny Problem, Says Macmillan CEO (go-to-hellman.blogspot.com)
• Macmillan Stacking Sandbags Against e-Book Flood (gigaom.com)
• Macmillan CEO to Authors: 'We Will Make Less Money on the Sale of E-books' [Internal Memos] (gawker.com)
• Macmillan CEO Defends eBook Pricing Model, Readers And Bloggers Object (huffingtonpost.com)

MacMillan and Whine: The Futility of a Crusade Against Digital Book Piracy

At the Digital Book World publishers conference being held this week in New York City, Macmillan president Brian Napack took the stage as guest speaker to call for his fellow publishers to take up an aggressive fight against digital book piracy, encouraging them to coordinate in a series of lawsuits and anti-piracy legislation. His goal, clearly stated, is to stop the spread of sharing copyrighted intellectual materials over the internet.

Image by LA100RRA 3logs via Flickr

Where have we heard this battle cry before?

For those of you who answered the music industry, award yourselves ten points for paying attention over the last decade.

Since you were paying attention, we can assume that you also remember what a complete failure their Commerce Crusade turned out to be. Not only did they come nowhere near ending online file sharing, it is still managing to gain negative press by gleefully slapping million dollar fines on young girls and single mothers. All of their legal posturing and attacks have failed to make anything resembling a dent in online piracy, or file sharing, or watever you want to call it. Oh sure, they took down Napster, but just look at the difference that made.

Now, they have handed the torch over to the publishing industry, and some of the major players within seem
to be more than eager to follow suit and go after what they perceive to be a drain on their profit margins.

But is it really? It is a fact that book sales have been dropping drastically in recent years, and while it hasn't been as crippling as the drop seen in newspaper and magazine sales, it is still a healthy chunk. Considering the predominance of computer use, the growing market for eBooks, and recent studies that (very loosely) estimate losses in the millions from illegally downloaded books, it doesn't seem like a far-fetched premise.

Then again, it does avoid missing the bigger picture. The country is in what can easily be described as economic turmoil, and this is having an effect on commerce across the board. A major key to successfully selling any kind of luxury merchandise is offering an affordable product that people can afford. With unemployment rising and pay-scales dropping, many people can no longer afford to buy books casually. And with the list price of most hardcover books being more expensive (and eBook list prices are inexplicably as expensive) than the latest Blu-Ray release or a dinner for two at Applebees, many people are taking a pass.

There's also the question of how big the problem could actually be. Unlike the music industry, which releases all of its products in easily copyable formats, publishers don't normally count on technology for the bulk of their sales. Nook and Kindle sales might be on the rise (and modestly so) along with other eReading formats, but they still make up a vary small percentage of the commercial reading population. The majority of readers still prefer good old fashioned paper and ink. And even when considering that percentage of electronic reading, there is no iconic Napster to publicly slam for making the last Harry Potter available to the masses. And let's be honest; no matter how many copies of the Twilight series were downloaded illegally, the book still made lots of money for all involved.

Can you get books cheaper through online markets and major bookstore chains? Sure, but you can also get them for much cheaper at flea markets and used book stores. You can even get them free through legal channels, such as book trading sites like PaperBackSwap and BookMooch. And let's not forget public libraries; who knows how many sales publishers have lost from libraries simply giving them away for free. I'm not even counting the thousands of free copies that publishers themselves give out to promote their books.

So considering all of these equally tangible and logical reasons for the recent drop in book sales, why pick the impossible goal of battling digital piracy? Maybe because it is the only symptom that the publishing industry can even pretend to do anything about, and while spending millions on lawyers and court fees just to prove some kind of point might not make any real difference in the scheme of things, it probably feels more productive than just watching with a shrug and a sigh while your company spirals into the red.

Am I defending eBook piracy? Of course not. But it isn't the major cause for the declining sales the industry is facing, and if they make this their own multi-headed Hydra to battle instead of tackling the tougher issues at hand, they aren't going to end up as victorious as Heracles.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Reduced award called too high in music piracy case (computerworld.com)
• Amazon To Introduce New 70% Royalty Option For Kinde Digital Text Platform (techcrunch.com)
• Amazon Kindle self-publishing platform launches globally (telegraph.co.uk)
• Hacker Claims to Have Broken Kindle Encryption (readersread.com)
• Amazon Allows Some Publishers and Authors to Opt Out of E-Book DRM (readwriteweb.com)

Publishers Scramble to Horde e-Book Profits

Librie eBook Reader" style="border:none;display:block" width="180" height="240">Image by Josh Bancroft via Flickr

The old-school publishing companies have been waging an ongoing battle on multiple fronts these days, all of them with different aspects of the same mortal enemy: the dreaded e-Book.

And they thought self-publishing was becoming a pain in the ass.

There has been a lot of news regarding powerful brick-and-mortar publishers and their constant struggle to catch up with and wrestle into submission the ever-increasing market for electronically formatted books. What didn't seem like a serious threat to them in the past has suddenly become a serious threat to the status quo (much like self-publishing), and the race is now on to head this new threat to the kingdom off at the pass.

Much of the news regarding these recent attempts has covered what appear to be different aspects of the battling formats. You have major publishers like Simon & Schuster announcing a set time delay between hardcover releases and their e-Book versions. Then there are the publishing companies that are desperately attempting to convince authors (and the families of deceased authors) that older publishing rights contracts imply their ownership of electronic versions of books even though they were written before e-Books existed. Beyond these major issues, smaller individual battles rage on with specific agents and authors. And let us not forget the constant wrangling with Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Nobles' Nook over content and accessibility.

As disparate as these fights might seem, however, they all boil down to one solitary bottom line; the bottom line. You know, money.

It has been a harsh time for publishers. Revenues have dropped drastically for all forms of publishing, from magazines and newspapers to textbooks and literature. The global economic recession has seriously reduced disposable incomes, making printed materials more of a luxury item these days. The rising costs of published materials hasn't made this any easier. When a thirty-two page comic book costs as much as most of us remember paying for a two-hundred page paperback novel, casual reading just doesn't seem so casual anymore.

Then there's the new technology. We're in the Information Age, after all, when information of all kinds is readily obtainable in multiple electronic formats, only a mouse-click away. Reading for research or recreation can be done from wherever you are sitting right now. We've reached a moment in time where people can browse vast collections of documents and written works on

their phone while on a bus. Even going through a tunnel. Now that's impressive.

But this isn't about free information, no matter what some publishers might say. Some might take up the music industry's torch by claiming that sharing of materials online hurts the industry, but that argument never holds water when they still manage to bring in billions of dollars in revenue. Besides, you don't hear any complaints about used bookstores stealing food from the mouths of publishing industry families. And libraries have been giving it away for free for years.

So what's the argument then? For the most part, it comes down to the publishing industry's unwillingness to change their pay model to represent the new technology. We saw the same thing with the massive writer's and actor's strikes a few years back. Now it is time for book publishers to step up and take the heat.

When publishing and selling a book, most of the major costs involve the physical creation and transportation of the actual book. You have to print vast quantities (that's a lot of ink and paper and glue), store them (prime real estate), and ship them (books are heavy). What is left, administrative costs and creative artist compensation, is purely negotiable.

The problem is that when it comes to the new e-Books, even though elimination of the physical costs have left the purely negotiable part of the equation as the bulk of the cost, publishers still aren't negotiating. Many out-of-print books are now being made available in e-Book form, but at prices close or equal to original print-book cover prices. New releases might be offered at more respectable $9.99 price ranges, but after that the costs can almost double for older and not-in-demand (see: non-celebrity authors) titles. Any used bookstore owner will tell you that this pricing model is ass-backwards.

This adherence to the old rules also has authors and agents bothered as well. Author's royalties are remaining at roughly the same percentage for e-Books, despite the considerable lack of publishing overhead. For the e-Books selling at the old prices, this equals a massive increase in profits for the publisher, and the author left with same amount of scraps. Now take that new release selling for $9.99 instead of the $27 (!!!) hardcover price. The author's percentage is down to nearly a third of what it would have been, while the publisher's reduced overhead still has their profit margin comfortably close to what it was before.

As publishers desperately try to rewrite old contracts and keep new releases off of Kindle and Nook eReaders, it can be easy to assume that these are the actions of an industry struggling to survive in a new age. But this one book you definitely can't judge by its cover, as the truth is far simpler. They are greedy. Like the music industry and film industry before them, they are trying to reap the benefits and rewards of a new age of digital entertainment without giving the artists involved with these creative properties their fair share.

Related articles by Zemanta

• End of Kirkus Reviews Brings Anguish and Relief (nytimes.com)
• Publishers Delay E-Book Releases (artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Simon & Schuster Introduces Digital Books with Video (mediabistro.com)
• Apple's alleged Kindle-crusher set for spring release? (theregister.co.uk)

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]" style="border:none;float:right">