Musings on "pay the writers."

Distributors of creative content are notorious cheapskates. Back when I was in radio ("uh-oh, here she goes again..."), it was well-known that radio stations in Florida, say, paid less than did those in less salubrious climes. Station owners could get away with paying lower salaries because people would apply in droves to work in a place where they could go to the beach every day. There was even a term for it: We said these stations paid in sunshine.

So last October, when I heard Wil Wheaton had turned down an offer from the Huffington Post to reblog one of his posts, I wasn't surprised when I learned the reason why: they weren't going to pay him. The editor he spoke with couched it in these conciliatory terms: "Most bloggers find value in the unique platform and reach our site provides..." Translation: We pay in exposure.

Keep in mind this was Wil Wheaton the editor was talking to. Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Wil Wheaton, internet sensation, who plays a version of himself on the TV show The Big Bang Theory. That Wil Wheaton. HuffPo would have benefited from his "unique platform and reach" -- not the other way around.

The blogosphere blew up over it. And then the news cycle moved on, as it does, and folks simmered down -- until last week, when the editor of the HuffingtonPost UK, Stephen Hull, ripped off the scab. He has admitted that the UK site has 13,000 contributing bloggers, none of whom are paid. Why? Because it's more "authentic." Because that way, everybody knows the bloggers didn't give up their words for, you know, filthy lucre.

This from a company that might be worth as much as $1 billion dollars. So it's not like they can't afford to pay their bloggers. They just don't. And Hull says he's proud of that.

Needless to say, the blogosphere lit up again. Chuck Wendig has told everybody what he thinks of the idea, in his own endearingly NSFW way. Kristen Lamb has followed suit. Both of them are calling for a ban on linking to any HuffPo blogs until the company starts paying bloggers actual cash money for their posts.

And I agree with them. HuffPo is exploiting their bloggers. It doesn't matter whether I approach you with an idea for a column, or whether you approach me first; if I write it and you publish it, you have hired me, and you need to pay me -- and not in sunshine, or in your "unique platform and reach." My landlords won't let me pay them in sunshine. They're funny that way.

I part ways with Kristen, however, when she extends the "pay the writers" drumbeat to ebook sales. Why? Because now we're talking about two different ecosystems. Big publishers who hire writers need to pay them fairly for their work, period. But indie authors who are trying to get their names out there need to do what's necessary to disseminate their work as widely as possible -- and if that means writing a guest post for a book blog, or even giving away several thousand copies of their novel, then that's what they need to do. The first is a work-for-hire relationship; the second is a marketing strategy.

I've heard the arguments: indies ought not undervalue themselves; selling their work for a dollar is too cheap and giving it away is outrageous. I get it. I do. But you can't let your professional pride in your writing cloud your judgment. Nobody's going to pay five or ten bucks for an ebook by someone they've never heard of. If your book will only sell for a dollar at first, sell it for a dollar. You'll earn 35 cents on each copy. What do you think a publisher would pay an unknown author as an advance? $3,500? Then make it your goal to sell 10,000 copies. If you price your book at $2.99 instead, you'll make $2.09 per copy, and you'll only need to sell 1,675 copies.

Writers who get insulted over 99-cent price tags aren't thinking like content distributors, but that's what you have to do to sell books. As I said, content distributors are cheapskates. But one of the joys of going indie is that you get to pocket not just the writer's cut, but the distributor's cut, as well.

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These moments of bloggy sunshine have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

How many books a year is too many?

Is the whole dust-up a load of sheep?
You decide.

Because I only blog here once a week, sometimes I miss the opportunity to talk about an issue when it's hot. By the time I get around to talking about it on Sunday night, everybody has already weighed in and moved on, and it feels like talking about it here will just rip off the scab.

Sometimes -- but not often -- it keeps me from talking about the issue at all. This week, as usual, it won't.

So here's the thing: Last Sunday, indie author Lorraine Devon Wilke wrote an article for the Huffington Post in which she basically told indie authors to slow down. Her post breaks with the advice-mongers who have been telling indies for the past few years that the way to success on the indie train is to write a lot of books and shove 'em out there. How many is a lot? She quotes one source who quotes some indies as saying they write and publish four books a year. Lorraine said in her post that four might well be too many for some folks -- that that sort of publishing schedule doesn't leave a lot of time for letting the prose ripen, working diligently with an editor to make the book the very best it can be, finding a cover artist, mapping out and executing an effective marketing strategy, and all the rest of the stuff that goes into making a book. 

I'm convinced she meant well. I believe she believed she was letting writers off the hook -- that people were feeling pressured to keep to some grueling, arbitrary publishing schedule and were freaking out and releasing their books before their time. She wanted those authors to know it's okay to write and publish more slowly.

But y'know, it's teh intarwebz. If people can get offended, they will. Some folks felt the tone of the article was condescending -- that perhaps Lorraine didn't believe anyone could turn out quality prose so quickly, and that maybe even she believed that the only sort of books worth writing were those slow, meandering, literary novels with exquisite words strung together in exquisite ways but with no actual plot to speak of.

I am pretty sure she didn't intend to say any of that, but that's what a number of folks got out of it. Chuck Wendig, who has had a fair amount of success with his own books lately, weighed in on Tuesday, suggesting the best course of action was this: You do you. In other words, write as many books as you're comfortable with, and take however long or short a time makes you comfortable doing it. My fellow minion at Indies Unlimited, Shawn Inmon, said much the same thing in a post on Thursday. I'm sure other bloggers piled on, as well, but those are the ones I saw.

By the time Shawn's post ran, Lorraine had gotten the message and then some. She posted a follow-up on her own blog Tuesday, saying that even when she tried to clarify her post at HuffPo, people got mad all over again. Like I said, it's teh intarwebz.

So what's my take? As I said above, I think Lorraine meant well. And all of the posts I read -- even Lorraine's -- came to same conclusion: Your publishing schedule is nobody's business but yours. You should publish as many books per year as you feel capable of producing without the product suffering in some major way. That doesn't mean your work has to be worthy of winning a National Book Award. But if you write slowly, own it. If you write fast, own it. If you write genre, own it. You do you, as Chuck says, and don't let the people with well-meaning advice tell you any differently. Indie Author Land is a big, big place, and there's room enough here for all of us.

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I'm still on track for my usual and customary three books per year, by the way. I have a little more work to do on the first draft of a companion guide to the Pipe Woman Chronicles books. It will feature some extra info about each of the gods and goddesses in the ten books of the series. I expect to make it a stand-alone book, and I'll probably also include it in the Pipe Woman Legacy set, which will be out sometime in November.

I had meant to make the companion guide a leisurely summer project, and write a new novel this fall. But when I blinked, it was mid-September. Ah, well. I won't have a big novel launch for the holidays, so maybe I'll do NaNoWriMo in November and have something fresh to start off the new year. I'll keep you posted.

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These moments of sheepish blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

The story behind my IU blog post.

When I'd been in radio for a few years, I had a job that I was increasingly desperate to get out of.  I'd loved it at first, but we had had some staff turnover and I had begun to see things in a different light.  Then, too, a promising romance had turned sour.  And I was tired of the town I was living in, too.  In short, it was getting to the point where I wanted to go back home.  So I applied for a job at a radio station in a bigger city much closer to where I grew up.  The news director called and asked me to come for an interview, which I did.  I liked her, and the station seemed okay.  And so I was thrilled when she called me, not long after the interview, and said I was her first choice.  In a flash, I wrote up my resignation letter and turned it in.  I was also asked to fill out a separation form that asked, among other things, why I was leaving. Not only did I tell them, but I was kind of blunt about it.

A few days went by.  Maybe a week.  And I didn't hear anything from my new employer.  So I called and asked the news director when she wanted me to start.  And she said, "They said no."

"What do you mean, they said no?" I cried, confused about who "they" were.  "I've already quit my job!"

It turned out that the news director who loved me didn't have final say on staffing.  That was up to station management, and they'd told her to keep looking.  So I had to go back to my current employer and tell them that the job had fallen through and I hoped I could stay on -- at which point I was informed that they had already advertised my position, and while I was welcome to re-apply....

As luck would have it, our crosstown rival had an opening, and they hired me shortly thereafter (and I learned very quickly just how good I'd had it at my original gig, which is another story).  But the whole thing was certainly A Learning Experience.

I was reminded of this episode a few days ago, when one of my Indies Unlimited compadres mentioned in the minions' lounge that she'd received an e-mail from a woman in Europe, asking IU for publicity for her book.  We do author interviews and book features and the like, so the request made sense.  But it devolved that English was not the author's first language, or her second, and it showed, in both her blurb and in the book itself.  She was contacted and informed, and that's when the story turned interesting.  It turned out that the author had found an editorial service on the Internet and paid them several hundred dollars to edit her book.  Clearly, they hadn't done a damn thing.

The IU troops rallied and gave her tons of advice on what to do next.  But the capper was when she admitted that she didn't have the money to hire a new editor because in order to promote her book, she had quit her job.

You can see how that resonated with me.  So the story of the Dude and Annie Abby became my post for IU this week.  Miz Abby's question -- "Why are you helping me? You don't even know me!" -- is more or less a direct quote from the European author after we gave her all of our advice.  But you know, that's just what indie authors do.  We do it because we've been there.

But I meant the post to be not just a celebration of indie authors; I meant it as a cautionary tale, too.  This Brave New World of e-publishing is a great place, but it's anything but serene.  Those waters that look so warm and inviting are infested with sharks -- sharks who are eager to bite you in the wallet.

I hate those sharks.  I really do.  I hate how they take advantage of innocent, unsuspecting people who dream of being published.  I hate how it's legal for them to do that.  And I hate how the sharks' parents never taught them that being kind is better than being wealthy.

Anyway, this is why I tell you guys to be careful when you pursue your publishing dreams.  Don't pay somebody money you don't have for something you can do yourself.  And please, please, please don't quit your job until your next step is a sure thing.
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Thanks to everybody who voted for Seized in Big Al's Books and Pals Readers' Choice Awards!  I lost to Hugh Howey's Wool, but I appreciate your support all the same, I'm still grateful to have been nominated, and I don't see any shame in losing to the 800-lb. gorilla.

Congrats to my fellow nominees, including IU staffers K.S. Brooks and Laurie Boris and alumnus David Antrobus.  And a big round of applause for Laurie and David, who won in their respective categories.  You guys rock!

Speaking of the 800-lb. gorilla, he had a great post in Salon this week about our Brave New World.  In the article, Howey says he can't envision a scenario in which self-publishing wouldn't be the best choice today.  That prompted Chuck Wendig to post the opposing view on his blog.  Both are entertaining reading; Wendig's is shorter, if you're pressed for time, but my money is obviously on Howey.

Oh, one more thing:  You'll see, at the top of the column to the left, a place to enter your e-mail address so that I can send you a little newsletter thingum when I have really big news to share.  Like, for instance, Annealed's release date.  I'm not going to spam you and I'm not going to sell your address to anybody else, I promise.  Thanks!

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This moment of cautionary-tale blogginess is brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.