When we started discussing the idea of a publishing themed month, we talked about the different types of publishing. I’m fortunate enough to be part of a wonderful E-Publisher, Musa Publishing. Celina Summers, the chief editor and founder of Musa, often talks about how she was frustrated that people equated E-Publishing with Self-Publishing. As a result, Celina was a natural choice to be our first guest poster this month. Writers have more options than ever to get to the reader. For a general overview of those options, read on and see what Celina said.

So take it away, Celina.

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It’s a great thing to be able to tell your family and friends that you’re published. After all, you’ve achieved a lifetime goal. Millions of people have written stories or novels without any of them seeing the light of day. But in the last couple of decades, the publishing industry has changed significantly. With the onset of digital publishing, self-publishing-once an outlet only the financially well-endowed could consider-took off. According to The Bookseller (http://www.thebookseller.com/news/publishing-proliferates-thanks-pod-and-digital.html) :

Nielsen 2010 book output figures show that 151,969 new titles were published in 2010, a leap of 14% on the output number given this time last year. The figure is derived from the number of ISBNs Nielsen issues over the year. However, the 2009 figure, of 133,000, has since been increased to 157,039 because of the late addition of digital titles in that year, a factor that may also further increase the 2010 figure. It means that year-on-year book production fell 3.2%, though the trend shows that output has soared: since 2008 it is up 13%, and since 2001, the market has risen by close to 40%.

Once upon a time, there was one way to get published. You wrote your novel, typed it up, sent it to an agent, the agent loved it and submitted it to a traditional print publisher, who bought it and then published it. But now, things are a lot more complicated. E-publishing has taken off, with thousands of young publishing houses releasing digital-only content. At the same time, self-publishing has exploded, with authors publishing their own books directly to the reader. And of course, lurking around the sewers of the industry, vanity presses are always eager to prey upon the uninformed author.

But these four terms are not synonymous. There’s a lot of difference between traditional publishing, electronic publishing, and self-publishing. (And vanity publishing is, at its heart, a scam) Where this becomes a problem is when the writer announces “I’m published!” but doesn’t distinguish between the different types of publishing. Because unless your self-published book sells millions of copies, chances are that an agent or book industry exec isn’t going to be interested in that publishing credit-or a bookstore. Regardless of what folks might think, there is a big difference between landing a multiple book deal with Random House and self-publishing a book through Lulu. So in order to avoid trouble down the line, it’s important for an author to self-represent correctly-and, more importantly, to use the different avenues in publishing wisely, to build a foundation for a writing career.

So, let’s take a look at each term separately.

Traditional publishing-Print. To most writers, this means New York. These are books that are represented by agents (most likely) and subsequently published by a major house-known as the Big Six-and any of their imprints. These books are released in paperback. Some come out in hardback. These books (usually) are where the legitimate bestseller lists originate. The author receives an advance for her book(s), and her titles are found in brick and mortar bookstores. In the past couple of years, the Big Six have jumped on board and begun to digitally publish their titles-at much higher prices and a much smaller royalty rate.

Let me interject that there are hundreds of legitimate, reputable, outstanding small presses out there-independent publishers that have nothing to do with New York or the Big Six. Indie presses are a fantastic place for a young writer to start out, especially genre writers. I’m going to put indie publishers under the traditional publisher title because they, too, publish primarily in print.

E-publishing-These publishing houses are digital first. They publish e-books primarily, although some are moving into POD(print on demand) availability for their books. An e-publisher is a genuine small house, following the same submissions, acquisitions, and editing processes as traditional publishing. Five years ago, e-publishing wasn’t considered a legitimate publishing credit by agents and New York publishers. That mindset is changing as the popularity of digital books increases.

Self-publishing-This is when a writer circumvents the publishing industry and releases his work himself. That also means the writer is completely responsible for making sure the book goes through all the proper processes-editing, typesetting, cover art, formatting, uploading, publicity and marketing. Unfortunately many self-published authors don’t do this. They release the book and then wait for the millions of dollars to roll in, which, unfortunately, rarely happens. For every self-published author like Amanda Hocking, there are tens of thousands of authors who never sell more than ten copies of their book.

Vanity publishing-Where an author pays to be published. Any time a publisher (or agent) asks for money up front, run away. Run fast. Yog’s law: money flows TO the author.

In the past six months, I can’t tell you how many people have told me their book was e-published, attempting to hoodwink me into thinking that another publisher had signed their book, put it through the processes, and released the book-only to find out later that in fact, the writer had self-published. (And no, making up a publishing company that only publishes one author’s work really doesn’t fool a publisher. If you’re self-published, just admit it.) Some come to me only when their book didn’t make money and they want to try again. Usually, those writers don’t know why. I do know why.

You see-there’s a reason for the ‘gatekeepers’ in publishing. The agents, the slushpile readers, the acquisitions assistants all have the same goal in mind: they are looking for publishable books. Books that are strong technically, that are engaging and entertaining. In other words, books that people want to read. When I am reading through submissions, I might ask to see one manuscript out of fifty. That’s not because the stories are bad, but because the story is not publishable in its current condition. Occasionally, however, I will be tempted to put more work into a manuscript because of the writer’s publishing history-her resume. And this is where the correct publishing types really makes a difference.

In publishing, as in any profession, people need to be accurate and honest about how they present themselves to others. If a writer’s book was self-published, it does no good for that writer to claim they were e-published. Sure, the author electronically published his book, but the book never went through any kind of evaluation, most probably wasn’t edited (because many self-published authors wish to retain all creative control over their book) and more than likely didn’t sell more than a hundred copies. If that book was e-published, to me that means that the author is familiar with the publication process-namely editing. And that right there predisposes me to look upon that submission more favorably, because I know that I won’t be having to drag an unwilling writer through the process that will make that particular book better.

And of course, once you start talking traditional publishing, unless your books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies, it doesn’t matter very much if you’re e-published or self-published or published-by-your-Uncle-Vinnie-in-Des Moines published. To a traditional publisher, it might as well be your first book. However, among the gatekeepers to traditional publishing, e-publishing is no longer considered the red-headed stepchild of publishing. I asked an agents’ panel three years ago if they considered e-publishing a legitimate publishing credit. About 70% said yes.

Since we opened Musa Publishing, agents are now submitting to us.

It makes sense, after all. With e-publishing’s higher royalties, lower overhead and international availability thanks to e-tailers like Amazon, authors and agents are intrigued by the possible financial rewards of a popular e-published success. Publishers like Musa Publishing are able to create a high quality product that readers enjoy, at a price readers appreciate. A lot of writers are making the same decision I made too-to begin my writing career in e-publishing. I could make better, immediate money while learning my craft and improving my work.

And the readers are reaping the benefits, as anyone with a fully stocked Nook or Kindle will tell you.

So there are sizable differences in the different types of publishing currently available, and it behooves the author to self-identify correctly. As a writer, it’s important to understand the differences-and to use those differences wisely as you plot out your career.

****

Thanks for that great insight. Celina. For my short story collection, Paths Less Traveled, my collection releasing today, Shots at Redemption, or a host of other amazing stories in just about every genre, please check out Musa Publishing.

June: Publishing Month

May 30, 2012

KylieQ

Kylie Quillinan Publishing The Writing Life No Comments

Here at The Fictorian Era, we have something of a motley crew, a bunch of writers at all stages of their careers. Some of us have been writing for only a couple of years, others for many years. Some are published in a variety of formats, others are still trying to get a foot in the door. Some are pursuing the traditional route, others are more interested in the indie path.

Not all that many years ago, the traditional path was the only legitimate publishing option. Within traditional, the options were to go with a major publishing house – the New York Big 6 – or a small publishing house. Self-publishing wasn’t an option if a writer wanted respect, readers, or an income. Epublishing changed all that. Self-publishing – or indie as it tends to be referred to – is becoming more and more of a real option. We’ve heard the success stories. We’ve seen writers who originally self-published go on to sign contracts with traditional publishing houses. And we’re seeing the stigma of self-publishing fade away.

During June, we’re exploring publishing options. We have guest posts lined up from writers Brandon Sanderson, David Dalglish, Stephen Nelson, Gini Koch, and Jordan Ellinger, literary agent Laurie McLean, and publisher Celina Summers. We’ll also be hearing from some of the Fictorians, some who you’re familiar with and a couple you don’t hear from often.

June is going to be an exciting month. We look forward to sharing it with you.

Anatomy of a Collaboration

May 28, 2012

David Carrico

Craft & Skills The Writing Process 5 Comments

I recently passed a milestone in my professional career as a writer. I collaborated on a novel with Eric Flint, and the manuscript (well, the Word file) was just turned in to the publisher (Baen). Unless the publisher changes the title, it should see print as 1636: The Devil’s Opera. I’ve made professional level sales of several shorter works, but that’s the first full length novel (165,000 + words) that will come out with my name on it, second billing though it will be. To say I’m somewhat exhilarated about this event would be a serious understatement.

When will it come out? I don’t know for sure; possibly in late 2013, more likely in 2014. There will be both a hard copy edition and an e-book edition from Baen.

What’s it about? Well, there isn’t a short answer to that. It’s a new alternate history story in the series that began with 1632, the first novel in the Ring of Fire series. There are over five million words in print in that series right now, between the novels and the anthologies and the Grantville Gazette e-magazine issues, all dealing with how approximately 3000 residents of a blue-collar West Virginia town survive and thrive when they somehow get dumped back in 1631 Germany in the middle of the Thirty Years War. This is just another episode in that extended story. Most of the novels in the series roam all over Western and Central Europe: large canvases, in other words, with correspondingly large time frames. 1636: The Devil’s Opera will be somewhat unique, in that it’s focused in a single location-the German city of Magdeburg-and it only covers a time frame of maybe four months. And there’s something in it for everyone: murder, music, boxing, financial irregularities, taverns and dives, tragedy, guns, humor, skullduggery and skullthumpery, more music, police procedural, a dog . . . oh, and a little romance as well. If you like video allusions, there are resonances with Rocky, On the Waterfront, Wall Street, The Sound of Music, and NCIS. Stay tuned; as soon as I find out, I’ll tell you when it’s going to be published so you can check it out.

Okay, enough about the book. I want to spend a little time talking about what I learned during this collaboration.

Why authors collaborate should be a separate post, I think. I will note that there are a number of different methods for collaboration in writing. Almost all of them start out with the collaborating authors doing any requisite world building, outlining the story to be told, agreeing on major characters, etc. Once all that preparatory work is done, the writing can progress in several different ways.

For example, if sections of the novel require certain knowledge or expertise, one author may write certain parts while the other writes the remainder. This approach seems to be most commonly used when both authors are of similar levels of skill.
More commonly, one author will write the first draft, while the other author will do the second pass. If one author is newer to the craft (like me), he will usually write the first draft while the more experienced/skilled writer (Eric) will do the final polish/draft.
And sometimes one author will look at another and say, “You start,” and the story is built somewhat like a tennis match, with no prior planning to speak of and the authors volleying responses back and forth. A lot of “letter” stories are actually written that way.

And all of those approaches require that one of the authors then do a second pass to tighten up the prose and smooth out any cracks or joints or bumps in the text.

So, yeah, I’m not ashamed to admit I was the junior author in this collaboration. I’ll play second fiddle to Eric Flint any day. And yeah, we used option 2. I wrote the first draft. I had a small group of alpha readers who I asked to give me feedback as I wrote it during a really rough spell in my life. It took over a year to write a book that should have taken me no more than four months. But I finally drove it to a conclusion, and gave the results to Eric. There was some back and forth between us-he fixed some issues, I fixed some others- plus a final polish pass by Eric, and a round of beta readers in there somewhere. I think it was the fourth draft that went to the publisher.

Now I definitely learned some things during the writing of the first draft. I learned a lot more from Eric in the weeks that followed; watching over his shoulder as he worked and reworked the subsequent drafts. I have a tendency to overwrite, so I expected him to throw away whole scenes and passages, but he really pitched very little, comparatively speaking. Eric did add some new material, as well, but what he did a lot of was rearranging of the text: moving blocks of text around, changing scene progressions and chapter structure and sequences. For example, theoretically I knew that chapters don’t all have to be about the same length. Eric made it real to me when he carved out single scenes from some of my existing chapters and made them chapters on their own. Five hundred word scenes became chapters. A single telegram became a chapter. And along the way, I discovered this was a technique that would make a particular scene or elements in that scene stand out and be more memorable than they would have been had they been buried in longer chapters. Just watching that exercise was worth the price of admission.

Paraphrased observations from Eric along the way:

“If you’re going to write a murder mystery, it’s best to have the body on the first page if you can manage it. It makes a great hook.”
“For a modern mystery, if you want a gritty tone, the city needs to be one of the characters.”
“For modern mysteries, tone down the melodramatic descriptions. Modern mysteries work better if the descriptions and the speech tags are a little flatter than, say, fantasies.” (I mentioned I tend to overwrite.)
“You’ve crossed the line with this hero-he’s getting way too hard. You’ll lose reader sympathy with him.” (That one was about balance of characterization.)

Eric once told me that a novel collaboration requires almost as much work from him as if he had written the entire novel himself. Because he’s the senior partner in most of the collaborations I’ve seen him do, that’s probably true. However, I suspect the nature of his work in a collaboration is very different than when he is working a solo project. From what I could tell in this collaboration, Eric spent much less time and energy in the creative part of the process and much more in the editing and revising part of the process. And I suspect that, overall, he spends less personal time in arriving at the final product.

Setting aside polite modesty, my first draft was good. Eric made it noticeably better.

1636: The Devil’s Opera by Eric Flint and David Carrico. A novel that is different than either one of us would have written alone. I’m proud of it.