Book news for your self-isolation.

This will be a short post, although jam-packed with news -- the pleasant kind, I hope. And it's been updated with links to the new book -- see below.

Item: As promised, Book 3 in the Elemental Keys reboot, Gecko Magic, dropped on Thursday. I really like this cover. (Yes, of course there's a joke about the gecko in the book. Did you even have to ask?)

The book is currently priced at $3.99, although I'll be knocking it down to 99 cents here shortly, because...

Item: Beach Magic is going up for pre-order. Yes! At long last, Raney's story will be coming to an end.

Here's the cover. I weighed several options for the sort of mischief Tiger should get into for the cover of this book, and decided at last that she'd be the kind of cat who would be attracted to a Fiery Portal of Doom.

She also doesn't appear to mind getting her paws wet, which is fairly unusual for a cat. But she's unusual in lots of other ways, too.

Gecko Magic ends in Colorado, where there are, of course, no ocean beaches. So given there's a beach on the cover of this book, you might have deduced that it jumps from one location to another. You would be correct. The gang will end up at Raney's beach house in Malibu -- but that's not their final stop. And that's all I'll say about that.

Beach Magic is the final book in the Elemental Keys tetralogy. The list price will be $3.99 and it will be available April 9th. If you pre-order it for your Kindle, it'll automatically download on the release day, which is pretty freaking cool. 

I know you guys have been waiting an extra-long time for this book. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your patience. And I hope you decide the end to Raney's story has been worth waiting for.

***

These moments of book bloggy excitement have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Hang in there! Wash your hands! Stay home and read!

She who expects nothing...

First and foremost, thanks to everybody who came to the Undertow launch party on Facebook yesterday! I had a blast, and I think the folks who came did, too. Best of all, I gave away all the prizes, including the door prizes. Congrats to Greta Burroughs and Illume Eltanin, who won the $5 Amazon gift cards, and to Chris Lewis, who won the $25 Amazon gift card.

It was so much fun, I'm thinking of doing it again when Scorched Earth is ready for release. Good thing I have a few months to rest up first.

***

I am not sure now where I saw the quote. Probably on a poster when I was in college. I don't think I owned the poster; it must have been a friend's, or maybe I just saw it in a store. But anyway, the quote is this:

It's meant to be funny, of course. I think the accompanying photo illustration was a woeful beagle with his head on his paws. But often, humor works because there's at least a grain of truth in it.

There was an article floating around Facebook a couple of weeks ago (which I can't find now, of course) about traditionally-published authors who are having trouble making a living from writing books. Several authors -- midlisters and literary writers -- were quoted in the article as saying they had gotten used to getting big enough advances from their publishers that they were able to support themselves on them. That allowed them to live and work as writers, without a day job; they could devote themselves to their art without having to worry about working for The Man in order to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.

Those halcyon days are apparently over. Advances from traditional publishers have been shrinking over the past decade or so, as those publishers pour more and more of their resources into big advances to already-famous people to pen blockbusters (or, more accurately, books the publishers hope will be blockbusters). This means midlist writers who have gotten used to living off the income from their books are being forced to recalibrate. They're either cutting back their expenses or -- the horror! -- having to take a day job.

In short, they had come to expect that they could make a living wage from their work, but their publishers are disappointing them.

The implication of the article was that maybe society has lost something by not paying our creators of literature a living wage for their words -- that what we're seeing is the passing of a golden age for the life of the mind.

The truth is, though, it's not the first time the paradigm has shifted for those who work in the arts. During the Renaissance, artists and composers sought wealthy patrons who would support them. The artists turned out stuff their patrons ordered, and wrote or painted or sculpted their pet projects on the side. That sort of patronage eventually went out of style. In the centuries since, artists, writers and composers have largely lived hand-to-mouth in pursuit of their art. There's a reason, after all, for the term "starving artist."

Then when capitalism became the New Hotness, people began make a habit of quantifying the worth of the worker's produced goods -- an attitude that still exists today, even when we're talking about service workers. "Do novelists contribute as much to the general welfare as doctors or lawyers?" people want to know. "Aren't police more critical to society than people who write books? What about firefighters? What about teachers?"

Yeah, yeah, I get it. All these people deliver work that provides an obvious benefit to society. They may not be making widgets, but they do provide services that we, as a society, have deemed important: healing the sick, helping us get out of trouble, protecting us, teaching us. The impact of writers' work, and its contribution to the greater good, is much less direct.

And too, books require thought in order to reap their benefits -- and that's not something we seem to value these days. I mean, who wants to have to think? We're tired when we get home from work, for goodness' sake. We just want a beer (or two or three) and a diverting TV show (or two or three). We might read for ten minutes before we fall asleep, assuming we can stay awake that long, but that's it.

So what does this mean for indie authors? A lot of us dream about kicking the day job to the curb and making a living from this writing thing someday. We have some things going for us in that regard that trad-pubbed authors don't -- higher royalties per book sold, for one thing. But I do sometimes wonder whether our society isn't sliding back into another "age of the starving artist." And I think it's probably prudent, in any case, to have a Plan B in our pockets, in case this writing-for-a-living thing doesn't pan out.

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

Welcome the jaguar, and a contest.

This week's news:

• Congrats to Danee Hayungs, who won a copy of SwanSong in the Goodreads giveaway.  I'll be dropping the book in the mail tomorrow.
• My very first official staff post went live at Indies Unlimited this week.  The subject is a serious but little-known syndrome suffered by indie authors, and we all hope you give generously so we can continue to suffer from it. ;)
• More fun with Animoto: I decided The Maidens' War needed some love, in the form of its very own trailer.  You can see the result over on the left there.

But of course, the big news is the release of Fissured: Book Two of the Pipe Woman Chronicles.  It's currently available at Amazon, Smashwords, and the Nook Store. I fully expect Smashwords will be sending it out to iBooks, Kobo, and their other affiliates within the next week or two.  Oh, and you can get a paperback copy from CreateSpace.

Major thanks to those of you who have already picked up a copy!  You are all my new best friends!

Starting Friday, I'll be on (virtual) tour for Fissured as part of the Orangeberry Summer Splash.  My first stop, at Nyx Book Reviews, will feature an interview with me, which I am posting for your convenience below.  Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to answer one of the questions below better than I did.  (Answer it as yourself, not as me!)  Post your Q&A either in the comments here, or on my Facebook page.  I'll award to my favorite a free copy of Fissured in the format of the winner's choice.  And as a friend used to say: the judge's decision is arbitrary, capricious, and final.

Here are my answers.  Go.
***

If you could invite any 5 people to dinner, who would you choose?

Four of them would be my grandparents.  Both of my grandfathers died before I was born, and my maternal grandmother died when I was six years old.  Now that I’m old enough to hold a conversation, I’d like to meet them.  Then I would try to stretch the guest list so that both my mother (who died in 2008) and father (who died in 1984) could come, too.

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Once upon a time, a company called Barracini made a flavor called cherry amaretto almond.  That stuff was amazing.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find it in probably twenty-five years.  These days, I settle for Turkey Hill Philadelphia Style in any flavor but strawberry.

What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?

A breakfast burrito from a street vendor.  But usually I have to settle for cereal.

Night owl, or early bird?

Night owl, for sure.  I can get up early if I have to, but I’m basically sleepwalking until about 8:00 a.m.

One food you would never eat?

Liver.  Ugh.  It even smells bad while it’s cooking.

Skittles or M&Ms?

You really know how to hurt a woman.  Today, almond M&Ms.  But tomorrow it might be Wild Berry Skittles.

Please tell us, in one sentence only, why we should read your book.

I had a lot of fun writing it and I think you’ll have fun reading it.

Any other books in the works? Goals for future projects? 

I’ve got three more Pipe Woman Chronicles books on tap.  I’m planning to write the third book during NaNoWriMo this November.  My original plan was to publish two books a year, but I might try to finish the final three next year.

What was your favorite book when you were a child/teen? 

I loved Little Women until I read Jane Eyre when I was in eighth grade.  Mr. Rochester proved to be a lot sexier than Mr. Bhaer.

If you could be one of the Greek Gods, which would it be and why?

Can I pick a different pantheon?  I would be Lugh, the Celtic god of light.  He was good at everything!  Plus, he’s the patron god of storytellers.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

There’s a reason why the Pipe Woman Chronicles series is set in Colorado – it’s because I harbor a not-very-secret-at-all desire to live there.  What’s not to like about waking up to a view of the Rockies every day?

When you were little, what did you want to be when you "grew up"?

I was a multitasker from an early age.  I wanted to be a nurse, a singer and a mother.  I gave up on nursing after finding out how many years I would have to spend in school.  And later, I learned I was a better writer than a musician.  But I do have two daughters who are now in their twenties.  I guess one out of three isn’t too bad.

What's the craziest writing idea you've had?

I once had an idea for a sci-fi short story that was basically a one-sided phone conversation about waiting for a bus, but it never went anywhere.

Hidden talent?

Music.  At one time, I could play clarinet, alto sax, guitar, and soprano recorder. I’m horribly out of practice now.

What movie and/or book are you looking forward to this year?

I had been trying not to get too excited about “The Hobbit,” but then a friend posted a link to the trailer on Facebook and that was all it took.  I’m not a huge Tolkien fan – I just think it looks like it will be a terrific movie.  As for books, the big one on my horizon is The Last Dark – the final book in “The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.”  Alas, it won’t be out until 2013.

Nickname?

My nickname in college was “Chesh,” which is short for “Cheshire Cat.”  As you might expect, there’s a story behind it.  At Indiana University in the 1970s, registration was held in Assembly Hall, the basketball arena.  Each academic department had a table that held boxes and boxes of IBM punch cards.  You went around to the tables and collected a punch card for each class you wanted to take.  Then you collected your financial aid at another table, and gave that to the bursar at still another table.  It was only after being spit out of that meat grinder that new students got their pictures taken for their ID cards.  When it was my turn to have my picture taken, the guy behind the camera told me to “stand there” – on a pair of bare footprints somebody had painted on the floor.  I was just punchy enough to think the footprints were hysterically funny.  So I sported a huge grin on my ID picture all through college.

If you were a bird, which one would you be?

I would be a magpie.  Magpies are members of the corvid family, as are ravens, crows, and jays.  But magpies live in Colorado, which (as we’ve discussed) is where I want to live.  Plus they like shiny things.  Not that that says anything about me.

If you could have a signed copy of any novel, what would it be and why?

Actually, I already have it:  Lord Foul’s Bane, signed by Stephen R. Donaldson.  It’s the first book in “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever,” which is my favorite fantasy series ever.

You have won one million dollars.  What is the first thing that you would buy?

Well, first, I’d do the practical thing and pay off debt.  But then I’d knock off the rest of the places on my short list of travel destinations (see “favorite places to travel” below).  Then I’d invest the rest of the money, retire early, and write.

What do you do in your free time? 

You mean when I’m not writing, marketing my books, or knitting?  I sleep!

What's your favorite season/weather?

Autumn, hands down.  I used to be a big fan of winter until I moved to the Mid-Atlantic, where snow throws everybody into a panic.  Spring is too soggy and summer is too hot and sticky.  But autumn skies are that beautiful deep blue, and I love the scent of fallen leaves.

Favorite places to travel?

I keep going back to Colorado, New Mexico, and southern West Virginia, so I guess those qualify as my favorites.  But I also have a list of destinations that I intend to visit someday.  I’ve been whittling away at it over the years and it’s now down to three places:  the Czech Republic, Ireland, and Alaska.  I’m going to the Czech Republic this fall, so if all goes as planned, soon the list will be down to two.

Favorite music?

Either Irish trad (my favorite group is Flook) or top-40 songs from the 1960s and ‘70s.  As a kid, I listened to one of two Chicago radio stations, either WLS or WCFL, depending on where Larry Lujack (a.k.a. Superjock) was working at the time.

***

I'm Lynne Cantwell, and I approve this blog post. 

Hope Nike doesn't sue me, Part Two.

First, as always, a little news.
Free books!!!:  Smashwords is running a promotion this month, in honor of summer in our hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere.  A whole bunch of books are available for free, or for cheap, with the coupon code SSWIN.  Both Seized and SwanSong are in the  free category.  Tell your friends -- and stop by yourself to pick up some new books.

The guest blog roundup:  I was very excited about my three -- count 'em, three! -- guest posts this week.

1. At Indies Unlimited, I posted part two of my series on writing news copy into your fiction -- and this time it was about broadcast style.  
2. An opportunity dropped into my lap late in the week to do a Fourth Wall feature at Cabin Goddess's blog.  "Fourth wall" is a theater term that refers to the virtual wall between the audience and the actors onstage; when actors talk directly to the audience, it's called "breaking the fourth wall."  In the feature at the Cabin Goddess's blog, the author of a particular book gets to meet his or her characters.  So I arranged a little visit for Naomi, Joseph and me.  It was a lot of fun to write.  I hope you get a chance to stop by.
3. And just today, I kicked off the first monthly column at the newly revamped Indie Exchange.  Donna has merged the original blog with the Book Bloggers Collaborative.  I'll be providing a post for them on the 1st day of the month from now through December.  (I picked the 1st so I wouldn't forget....)

Two blogs also ran special features this week on Seized:  the Summer of Indie and Bunny's Review.

Industry news:  One of the reasons people sometimes give for not wanting to go indie is that it's difficult to get libraries to buy copies of any book that doesn't come through traditional channels. Libraries are just beginning to adopt e-book lending in a big way, partly because the big publishers have typically put all kinds of restrictions on the practice -- to the point where you can borrow an e-book from your local library and end up a week later, when the borrowing period expires, with a file you can't open that's stuck on your e-reader.  (Not that that's ever happened to me or anything.)  Yet library purchases can represent a big chunk of a book's revenues.  Smashwords is coming to the rescue.  The company announced this week a deal with Califa, a consortium of 220 public libraries in California, to deliver books published by Smashwords to those libraries, as well as libraries in other states.  If this works the way Mark Coker usually does business, I think readers can expect lots fewer restrictions on e-book lending from their local libraries soon.

Califa will be taking delivery of the top 10,000 sellers at Smashwords to start with (alas, none of my books has reached that lofty height yet!), but it's expected that the program will grow.  Overall, this appears to me to be great news for both indie authors and library patrons.

***

Last week, I offered a pep talk for those of you who have been, y'know, kinda sorta thinking about doing something with that book you've got sitting in a drawer.  Today, I'd like to offer you an out.

If you haven't gotten around to publishing your book -- or staging an exhibition of your art, or setting up an Etsy site for your crafts, or getting the band back together -- by now, you probably have a good reason for it.  Maybe you found that you were better at something else than you were at (shelved project). Maybe life intervened -- family obligations, work obligations, whatever. Or maybe you're stymied -- you don't know where to take the work from here, and are letting it sit while your subconscious works it out for you.

Those are all valid reasons for stepping away, and it's pointless and kind of ridiculous to beat yourself up for doing it. We all have different talents; we all have obligations. I set aside my fiction writing for most of the 20 years I worked as a journalist and raised my kids -- parenting sucks up a lot of free time.  And I admit that I used to own a couple of ambitious needlepoint projects that I carted around with me through various moves over the years.  I finally got rid of them because I knew I would never finish them. I felt bad about doing it, but I realized that I've moved on from needlepoint (as I had moved on previously from other crafts). And that's okay.

As far as letting the work sit for awhile? I do this all the time. I call it "letting it ripen."  Not only is it a valid editing technique, but it's even recommended.

My point is that there's absolutely no reason to castigate yourself. People start stuff all the time and then bail. There's no reason to believe you're any different from the rest of humanity. If you tried (creative outlet) and decided ultimately that it wasn't for you, or if you've set it aside for purely practical reasons -- and you're satisfied that that's all it is, and that none of the psychological barriers we talked about last week are to blame -- then you have my permission (if it helps!) to just move on.

***
I'm Lynne Cantwell, and I approve this blog post.

"Seized" trailer, guest blogs, and let's hope Nike doesn't sue me.

First -- as Paul Harvey used to say -- it's time for News!

I finished the trailer for Seized last night and uploaded it to YouTube.  You can watch it right here!  Just look to the left and click the arrow on the owl's forehead.

This isn't my first foray into video editing -- I taught video production at the college level (for one brief, shining moment) -- but this was my first attempt at digital video editing.  I think the trailer turned out okay.  But I am here to tell you that Windows Live Movie Maker is not exactly a robust editing platform -- there's no audio meter, no shuttle for advancing the movie frame-by-frame (or whatever the digital equivalent is), no apparent way to lengthen the timing of a wipe, and the list goes on.  I may have to sink some actual cash into a real video editing program, if only to keep from tearing my hair out the next time I make a trailer.  Software suggestions?  Thanks in advance!

Also, I managed a hat trick this week in terms of guest blog posts.  On Thursday, my home office was featured (with a photo shoot and everything!) at the Indie Exchange.  Also on Thursday, the first of two articles I wrote on how to write a fake newspaper story the right way was published at Indies Unlimited.  I'm quite proud of that one, as it allowed me to link both halves of my writing brain -- the creative left side and the journalistic right side. (The second article, on writing a fake broadcast news story, will run this coming Thursday.)  And then on Friday, Adventures in the Czech Republic posted my tale of how I came to write The Maidens' War.  Stop by and read 'em, if you like, and feel free to post a comment.  The blog owners will be grateful.

***
Now, on to the meat of this week's post.  (In case you're keeping track, this is not the rant I was going to write a while back.  This is, in fact, a whole different rant.)  I wrote the original version of this post for the Kevinswatch message board a few days ago.  It's directed at anybody who has a book sitting in the drawer and who feels like a loser because it's never been published.

I've heard of, and talked to, so many people who apparently would rather beat themselves up for being a failure than put in the work required to turn their ideas into something. I know, I know: what's on paper isn't what was in your head, the plot is derivative, the characters are wooden, the whole thing lays your soul too bare. All of that, except the last, can be learned. Getting what's in your head down on paper just takes practice -- that old "apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair" thing. Plotting can be taught (and as more than one author has said, there are only a certain number of plots in the world anyhow -- so of course yours is derivative, duh). There are tricks to bringing characters alive. You can learn them by reading Writer's Digest magazine, by taking classes, by trolling the web for writing blogs -- and then practicing. There are online critique groups. You can even find editorial help for your book online.

You can't even use "no one will ever publish this" as an excuse any more -- not since the advent of Kindle Direct Publishing, Smashwords.com and B&N's PubIt. Smashwords puts out a free style guide -- just follow the directions and upload your file, and poof! You're published. Want a paperback you can hold in your hand? Lulu and/or CreateSpace will be happy to help you. You can even buy one of their packages and they'll do your formatting and cover design for you. Not only that, but now you're an indie author! We are hip, hot and happening!  And we are happy to welcome you.

So it's not the mechanics -- not any more. It's the "I'm not worthy" crap that stops people from reaching their dreams.  Biology isn't destiny, and neither are life circumstances.  We had a story posted at the Watch about a young man who came up through the New York City social services system and is now a published author. It's not where you've been; it's where you're going.

And the "I'm laying my soul bare" thing? I hate to break this to you, but: you are not the only human being who has ever had the feelings you're writing about; you are not the only human being who has ever written about those feelings; and you are not the only human being who has ever shared them publicly. Maybe your words are destined to help somebody. Maybe your words are the one thing that will kick them in the ass and make them do what they need to do. Maybe your withholding your words from the world is actually hurting that person. Puts a different spin on that book in the drawer, doesn't it?

Don't tell me it can't happen. You never know when, or how, your words will come back to you. Back when I was a reporter, I found myself sitting in a county council meeting in West Virginia one day and heard a guy in the audience quote from a news story I'd written and that had aired on our radio station that morning. The guy had freaking memorized my story and was quoting it as a challenge to the board members. I don't even remember what the topic was; I just remember the weird feeling of hearing somebody I had never met quote something I had written.

Seriously, stop beating yourself up. You're not a failure. Just get it done already.

Of Apple and price-fixing, mainly.

I'm a little punchy today.  I capped a long, busy weekend with a marathon writing session yesterday -- about twelve and a half hours, including a dinner break and a couple of other breaks -- in which I finished the first draft of Fissured.  (It's a long way from being ready to see the light of day, but at least the bare bones are on (virtual) paper now.)  I started writing around 2:00 p.m.  Y'all can do the math.  And if I then tell you my alarm went off this morning at 7:00 a.m., well, you can see what I mean by punchy.

This would also explain why your weekly Sunday blog post (didn't know there was a pattern, did ya?  :D) is happening today.  Which is kind of sad because I have actual news to talk about this week.

If you follow e-publishing news, you've likely heard by now about the U.S. Department of Justice filing suit against Apple and two traditional publishers for allegedly colluding on the prices of e-books.  (Three traditional publishers settled with the DoJ out of court.)  The DoJ says Apple told the publishers they could set whatever prices they wanted for their iPad-compatible e-books, as long as Apple got thirty percent.  In contrast, Amazon was charging $9.99 for most e-books, regardless of the publisher's list price, and eating the difference (as it reportedly does on Kindle sales) in order to grab as much market share as possible.  When Apple gave the publishers the ability to set their own prices, they went to Amazon and demanded the same deal.  And e-book prices shot up pretty much overnight -- to the point where now, e-books by popular authors are going for very close to the hardcover price.  J.K. Rowling is taking pre-orders at her website for her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy -- $21 for the hardcover and $19.99 for the e-book.  I hear what you're saying:  "But it's J.K. Rowling."  And I get that.  But still -- twenty bucks is a lot of money for an ePub file.  And who knows, she might suck at writing for adults.

Anyway, opinions in the blogosphere abound -- some of the pretty crazy -- on what this will mean for the various players in the publishing business.  Here's my (fairly rational, I hope) take:

• If Apple and the publishers are found to be guilty of price-fixing, then publishers will certainly be hurt.  It doesn't cost a lot for a publisher to offer an e-book edition.  So it doesn't take a genius to realize that if publishers can charge hardcover prices for a product with minimal per-copy costs, they stand to make huge profits from the e-books they do sell -- and at the same time they've discouraged e-book sales, thereby propping up their dead-tree book business.  But if retailers are allowed to sell e-books at essentially the same price as a mass market paperback, publishers will lose their cash cow.  I don't think it will be the end of paper books...yet.  But young adults already have adjusted to reading just about everything on screen.  Once us old farts die off, the penchant for paper may well die with us.  Then, I expect, dead-tree books will go the way of vinyl records and CDs.
• Readers will certainly benefit from the lower prices.
• This won't be the death knell for bookstores.  I mean, eventually there will be a death knell for bookstores, but in my opinion, this ain't it.  I've seen some reports that show people read more books after they get an e-reader than they did before.  If trad-pubbed e-books cost less, I would expect readers to buy more of them -- and bookstores like Barnes & Noble that have skin in the e-reader game can only benefit from that.
• In the case of us indie authors, I maintain we won't take much of a hit at all.  Most indies price their books around the $3 or $4 mark; I would be very surprised to see Amazon or Apple drop the prices on trad-pubbed e-books to that level as a general rule.  That means indie e-books will still be undercutting trad-pubbed e-books by a significant amount.  And all the other self-pubbing economics still apply:  most people these days will spend $3 or $4 without a second thought; books priced at $1.99 or 99 cents, or free, are still an amazing deal.  I don't think anything short of a drastic restructuring of Amazon's self-pubbing model will impact us.

Call me an optimist, but I'm inclined to let the big boys at the top of the food chain slug it out.  When the dust settles, I expect we indie authors will still be here.

I'd love to hear your comments.  Feel free to post 'em below.

Spring cleaning, or: stuff I should have said before now.

First, a big shout-out to the 814 people worldwide (yes, worldwide!) who downloaded Seized for free during the grand opening weekend promotion Friday and yesterday -- and an even bigger shout-out to those of you who paid money for a copy.  The free "sales" drove Seized to the #5 spot on Amazon.com's Contemporary Fantasy free book list on Friday.  I'm not going to claim bestsellerdom -- I can't in good conscience, since I was literally giving the book away -- but the interest is certainly heartening to this fledgling indie author.

Anyway, welcome to anyone new who has wandered here from a recent purchase of Seized.  And please, after you read the book, I'd appreciate it if you would go back to Amazon and post a review.  Reviews do drive future purchases to some extent (and that's as close as I'll come to getting on my knees and pleading...).  Thanks.

For those of you who missed the free event -- sorry about that.  I put the info out on Facebook and Twitter, which I was pretty sure covered everybody who comes here as well.  I promise to post here, as well, in advance of the next freebie day.

And for those waiting for a dead-tree edition of Seized:

1. I spent some time last night formatting the paperback and uploaded it to CreateSpace.  Next, they have to let me know that the proof is ready for my review; then it takes about a week for them to send me the proof.  If it looks good -- and I have no reason to believe it won't -- I'll give CreateSpace the nod to publish it.  I will definitely post everywhere when that happens.
2. Formatting a paperback is a lot more work than publishing an e-book.  Plus the paperback is way more expensive to buy, and I don't get nearly the profit from it.  (If I made the paperback $2.99, too, I wouldn't make any money at all from it.)  So I'd like to reiterate something I touched on last week:  even if you don't have a Kindle (or some other flavor of e-reader), you can still read e-books.  Amazon has free Kindle reading software for just about any platform you can think of -- click here to take a look.  I have the Kindle reader on both my iPhone and my PC, and it works like a charm.  You can resize the font (which is a big deal for us old farts).  And as I'm in the habit now of carrying my phone everywhere with me, I've always got something to read.  (I've also got a Nook reader and an iBooks reader on my phone.  The Nook reader -- and the Kindle probably does, too -- keeps track of where I am in the book, so that if I read on my phone on the way home and then pick up the Nook device later in the evening, I don't have to page ahead.  Amazing, huh? Sometimes, technology really does help us.)
3. If you're after an autographed copy, you don't really need a hard-copy book.  There are a couple of ways to do it with an e-book.  Probably the least cumbersome is to go to kindlegraph.com and plug the author's name into the search box.  For example, if you type in "Lynne Cantwell", you'll pull up a page for all three of my books.  Each has a button below for requesting a Kindlegraph.  Click that, and away you go.  (A caveat: I think this only works for your Kindle books.)

One last thing:  I posted a couple of weeks ago about the Smashwords/PayPal dustup.  It looks as though Smashwords has been able to get PayPal to see reason, which is good news indeed.  But that doesn't mean the culture war is over.  Stay tuned....

A pause, while your correspondent mulls over PayPal.

First, in the news:  If you've been meaning to read SwanSong, I've got a deal for you.  As part of Read an Ebook Week this week, SwanSong is free at Smashwords.com. There's a link to the left, below my picture, that will take you to my Smashwords author page; from there, you can click to the SwanSong page.  Just remember to put in the coupon code from the SwanSong page when you check out.

Also, if all goes well, Seized: Book One of the Pipe Woman Chronicles will be seeing the light of day on or about the spring equinox (which is March 20th this year).  That's, like, two weeks from now.  (Note to self: Yikes!)

Now then.

I was going to run part two of my two-parter on grad school this week.  But then I got an e-mail from Smashwords (not that I'm special -- they sent the same one to all their authors and publishers) that I want to talk about instead.

Here's what's happened, in the words of Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords.  These are excerpts from the e-mail I received yesterday.

In case you haven't heard, about two weeks ago, PayPal contacted Smashwords and gave us a surprise ultimatum: Remove all titles containing bestiality, rape or incest, otherwise they threatened to deactivate our PayPal account.

PayPal tells us that their crackdown is necessary so that they can remain in compliance with the requirements of the banks and credit card associations.... [snip]

PayPal is asking us to censor legal fiction. Regardless of how one views topics of rape, bestiality and incest, these topics are pervasive in mainstream fiction. We believe this crackdown is really targeting erotica writers. This is unfair, and it marks a slippery slope. We don't want credit card companies or financial institutions telling our authors what they can write and what readers can read. Fiction is fantasy. It's not real. It's legal. [snip]

Several Smashwords authors have contacted me to stress that this censorship affects women disproportionately. Women write a lot of the erotica, and they're also the primary consumers of erotica. They're also the primary consumers of mainstream romance, which could also come under threat if PayPal and the credit card companies were to overly enforce their too-broad and too-nebulous obscenity clauses (I think this is unlikely, but at the same time, why would dubious consent be okay in mainstream romance but not okay in erotica? If your write paranormal, can your were-creatures not get it on with one another, or is that bestiality? The insanity needs to stop here. These are not questions an author, publisher or distributor of legal fiction should have to answer). 

The last part got my attention because (spoiler alert!) my next book has a character who can change into the shape of an animal.  I don't think any sane person would consider what I've written to be crossing the line into bestiality.  But then, no sane person would expect Rush Limbaugh to call a female law student a slut because she wanted her college health service to offer contraception.  Oh wait....

Personally, I think the bankers in this country have enough control over our lives already without dictating to a publisher what he can or can't publish.

Coker winds up by saying:

All writers and their readers should stand up and voice their opposition to financial services companies censoring books. Authors should have the freedom to publish legal fiction, and readers should have the freedom to read what they want.

Right on, Mark.

Here's a little more information about the PayPal dispute.

That was quick.

Happy Monday!  Just thought I'd let y'all know that I've got a new short story up at Amazon, which you can find here.  Hope you enjoy it.  (And if you do, for the love of the gods, please go back and post a review.  Thanks!)

Back to radio silence on the blog 'til next weekend....

What I learned in grad school: part 1.

First, I may have a little publishing news for you in a day or so.  Stay tuned...

Second, the post below first appeared last month, in a slightly different form, on The Indie Exchange blog.  It goes nicely with another guest blog post I wrote a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I would run them both here as well.  If you've already read them, sorry about that....
___

Almost twenty years ago, I decided to try to become a published fiction author.  I had been working as a journalist for about fifteen years, and had been writing fiction off and on for an additional couple of decades.  I fancied myself a pretty good writer already, but one with a credibility problem:  just because I had a track record as a journalist didn’t mean a publisher would buy my fiction.  I figured the way to fix it would be to get a master's degree.  All it would take, I reasoned, was to spend a couple of years hobnobbing with professors and others of the literary ilk, and then presto!  I’d have a publishing contract in no time.

Yeah.  Well.  It didn’t work out that way.

Oh, I got into a program, all right -- the part-time M.A. program in fiction writing offered by Johns Hopkins University at their Washington, DC, campus.  Hopkins’ full-time writing program at the Baltimore campus was then second in reputation only to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.  That boded well for my goal.  But what I didn’t understand about M.A./M.F.A. programs in writing was that they’re not necessarily geared toward publishing.  Everybody in them wants to be published, certainly.  But most never are.

To make things worse, as loyal readers of this blog will know (all hail the Loyal Readers of This Blog!), I write fantasy, which is considered genre fiction.  I tried, for the sake of my grades, to write realistic fiction in workshop, but it always felt strained to me.  And yet my professors were telling me that literary fiction was highly preferable to genre, because it was, well, literary.

I did come out of the program with an M.A. and a novel manuscript.  It was a dystopian novel, dystopian fiction being somewhat more acceptable in literary circles than fantasy.  My adviser really liked it.  The agent who came to talk to us at one of our last classes asked me to send it to her.  Things were looking good!

Then, many weeks later, the agent sent my manuscript back unread.  She included a nice, apologetic note about how she was too swamped to read it.

Disheartened, I tried to sell some of my short stories -- no takers.  Discouraged, I shelved my dream of a fiction writing career for several years. In the meantime, I co-authored Live Simply in the City, from which I made exactly zero dollars.

Then, in 2005, some folks I’d met at kevinswatch.ihugny.com decided to try to pull together an anthology of our own fiction.  I wrote a story for that anthology -- the first fantasy story I’d written in years -- and the anthology committee accepted it.  Suddenly, I was published, sorta kinda.  The Kevinswatch crew produced two more anthologies over the next two years; I wrote a story for each, and each was accepted.  Then our editor, Joy Calderwood, started her own e-publishing house, and asked me whether she could republish two of the stories I’d written for the Kevinswatch anthologies.  I shrugged.  Sure, why not?

Then some people actually paid money for them.  I took it as a sign.  When I finished The Maidens’ War, I sent it to Joy, and she published it.  Now I really was a published author -- no M.F.A. required.

To be fair, I did learn a few things in grad school.  As a broadcast journalist, I was really, really good at writing first drafts, because that’s all I had time for.  I had to learn how to revise my work -- and how to tell what needs revising.  Grad school taught me that.  In addition, I received a lovely, engraved piece of paper that allowed me, later on, to teach at the university level.  But sadly, and more importantly, grad school turned me away from writing what I’m best at, and it took me years to get back onto the proper path.

So if you’re wondering whether to go for an M.F.A., I’d recommend that you examine your motives.  If you want to teach, go for it.  But if you think it will fast-track you into the World of Publishing, be aware that it's not very likely.

Why every book isn't available as an e-book; and Indie news.

Let's cover the news first:  As you may recall from our last exciting episode, Adopt an Indie is no more.  However, there's good news!  The program has morphed into a website/blog called The Indie Exchange, which you can find here:  http://theindieexchange.com/.  The idea is to link up readers with great indie authors (like Yours Truly). You don't have to be a blogger or an author to participate.  We've also got a Facebook page and a group on Goodreads.  Anyhow, stop by any or all, and check them out.

Now then.  I saw this question come up in a Goodreads forum:  Why isn't [my favorite book] available as an e-book?  The favorite book in question is usually something that's too recent to be in the public domain, but not recent enough to have been published after the advent of e-books.  And so the short answer to the question is: copyright.

American copyright law has morphed into a monster over the years.  In 1790, when the law was first enacted, an author held copyright on his works for a period of 14 years, renewable for a single additional 14-year term.  Subsequent legislation has extended those periods several times.  Currently, for works published in 1978 or later, authors hold copyright to their work for 70 years past their death.  That's right -- even if your favorite author dies, his or her work is still under copyright for another 70 years.  Works published before 1978 are protected for 95 years from the date of publication.  Works published in the United States before 1923 are considered to be in the public domain -- that is, you may do with them what you will.  (From Wikipedia.)

As you can see, chances are pretty good that your favorite book is still under copyright protection.  So a publisher cannot simply take that book from its backlist and produce it as an e-book; it must negotiate terms with the author, who owns the copyright on the work.

Now we must fight our way through another thicket.  Publishers buy from authors the right to publish their works. The publisher's contract with the author will specify which rights the publisher is buying -- hardcover, trade paperback, mass market, and so on -- as well as payment for the rights, and the length of time before the rights revert to the author.  Back before Al Gore invented the Internet,* of course, electronic rights didn't exist, and so publishers didn't know to lock them up in their contracts -- unless they put in a tricky clause that said they were buying all possible rights, now and forever, amen.  Authors whose contracts don't have that tricky clause can do whatever they want with their backlists, including publishing them as e-books themselves -- and some authors are doing exactly that.  Authors with the tricky clause in their contracts have a couple of options:  they can either convince the publisher to allow the e-book rights to revert to the author (which might have worked a few years ago, before e-book sales began to take off, but may be more unlikely now), or they can negotiate with their publisher to agree on a fair price for the publisher to produce an e-book.

At best, the process takes time.  At worst.... Well.  I will offer a cautionary tale about bestselling author Stephen R. Donaldson and the problems he's had in getting his backlist published in e-editions.

Donaldson -- who has talked about all of this on his website, http://www.stephenrdonaldson.com/, and in public -- authorized the e-book publication of his (lesser-known, sadly) GAP Cycle sci-fi series first.  Instead of taking a clean Word document from Donaldson for the text, however, the publisher decided it would be cheaper to send the hard-copy books to India and have them scanned and proofread there.  If you've ever had the dubious pleasure of correcting an OCR document, you have an idea what the result was.  To compound the problem, Indian English is not standard American English (or even standard British English).  Donaldson found whole chunks of text missing from one book, and he submitted 15 pages of corrections for another one.

For his best-known work, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Donaldson has prevailed upon the publisher to scrap the OCR idea and accept Word documents from him.  The first Covenant e-book is due out this spring.  This series is my favorite fantasy work ever, and I can't wait to own my own e-book versions.  But it's been a long, hard road to get there.  And perhaps now you can understand why it might be awhile before your favorite book is available for the Nook.**


__________________
*Oh, leave me alone.  I know Al Gore didn't invent the Internet.
** Shameless plug for Barnes & Noble, my daughter's employer.

New Year's musings, and when to call a mom Mom.

First, let me officially wish everybody a happy 2012.  I hope that in this coming year, if you don't get what you want, at least you get what you need.  (There's your gratuitous Rolling Stones reference for the year.  I think it's good to get that kind of stuff out of the way as early as possible.)

Second, I posted not long ago that I was going to be participating in the February Adopt an Indie event, and that SwanSong was going to be up for grabs for some lovely person to read and blog about.  Alas, the organizer has cancelled the event.  Her personal life has ramped up, and she has not received enough help from volunteers to take on some of the responsibilities for the event, despite her numerous requests.  So, no Adopt an Indie next month.

I'm bummed because, frankly, I was looking forward to the publicity for my book.  But Donna had a larger aim of promoting indie authors in general; of course I support that, because improving the reputation of indie publishing will be good for all of us in the long run.  But not every indie author is so altruistic.

Anyway, and third, this means that my schedule is cleared for the next couple of months, and that can only be good news for the next book.  It's back from the first round of reviewing (thanks, Suzu -- you rock!) and my suspicions about the narrative's weak points have been confirmed.  So one of my goals for 2012 will be to whip that sucker into shape, aiming for publication in all the usual places by April or May.  (Stay tuned for updates, right here on this station!)

My other writing/publishing goals are to then draft the second book in the new series in May or June, with the aim of publishing it before NaNoWriMo 2012 begins, during which I hope to draft book 3 of the series.  (Whoa, I just realized the NaNo part of the timetable.  I'm gonna be a busy writer chick this year....)  And I'd also like to get back to updating this blog on a more consistent basis.  I think I kind of missed the once-a-week mark toward the end of the year there.  Apologies for that.

But enough about me.  Let's talk for a moment about...capitalization.

The issue is when to capitalize nouns that do double duty, sometimes as people's names and sometimes as regular ol' nouns.  I've seen this crop up in more than one place lately, so I thought I would address it here.

The rule is really simple.  If you're speaking directly to the person, or calling the person by name, you capitalize the word, just as you would capitalize anyone else's name.  Like so:  "Mom, I want to take Carrie to the prom."  Another example:  "Mom, Dad, and Amelia went to the store without me."  In each case, you're referring to Mom and Dad by name.  Mom and Dad's birth certificates might say Mildred and Murgatroyd, but to you, their names are Mom and Dad -- so you capitalize the words.

However, if you then tell someone, "My dad let my sister get a candy bar at the store,"  you're referring to neither Dad nor Amelia by name, so in this case you would not capitalize the words.

One way to make the distinction is to look at the word or words that precede the word in question.  If the word before the noun is not a possessive pronoun (my, his, her, our, their), an article (a, an, the, some, no), or an adjective, then it's likely that you're referring to Dad by name, so you should capitalize it.  (I mention adjectives because chances are really good that you'll find one of the other two parts of speech in front of the adjective.)  Does that make sense?

Please let me know if I've missed a part of speech that would trigger the lower-case dad.  Thanks!

Amazon wants to be your ONLY bookstore.

I got a check in the mail this week from my friends at Amazon, for royalties from the launch of SwanSong.  (Thanks for buying it, everybody!)  So I'm disposed to be cheerful toward them right now.  But they're not making it very easy.

First up this week was an e-mail from Kindle Direct Publishing, announcing a program called "KDP Select."  Amazon has set aside a fund for author reimbursement for titles borrowed from the new Kindle Lending Library.  All I have to do is enroll my book in the program, and I can get a chunk of that fund (based on the number of times my book is "borrowed" compared to the number of books participating).  Sounds like a no-brainer, right? 

Well, there's a catch.  I would have to make my book exclusive to Amazon for 90 days.  Which is to say that I would have to unpublish it at Smashwords, and anywhere else I might have made it available for sale -- even on my own website, assuming I sold my books here.  (Interestingly, unpublishing at Smashwords doesn't necessarily mean my book would be unavailable anywhere but the Kindle Store. That's because Smashwords acts as a distribution hub for a number of other e-bookstores, including Barnes and Noble's Nook store, the Sony Reader Store, and iBooks, and it would take several weeks for all of them to take down my book's listing on their sites.)

I've also heard that Amazon's not making it easy for authors who publish new works on KDP to opt out of the lending program.  Apparently, they've kind of hidden the button.  (I bet you were surprised, huh?)

Then Friday comes an announcement from Amazon about its new Price Check app for smartphones.  With this app, you can scan the barcode for an item at a brick-and-mortar store, and Amazon will tell you what it would charge you for it -- and, of course, will allow you to place an order immediately.  So far, you can't buy books this way.  But independent booksellers are already complaining.  For one thing, they stock puzzles, games, and other items that are eligible for the Price Check app.  But the real problem is that small local businesses can't afford to sell stuff as cheaply as Amazon does -- they don't do the same kind of volume, obviously, but they also have brick-and-mortar expenses that Amazon doesn't have.  Independent booksellers are accusing Amazon of encouraging its customers to use their stores as a "showroom":  test drive the item in person, then order it cheaper online.  Some are even going so far as to reward customers who can prove they've cancelled their Amazon account.

I'm not inclined to go that far.  Amazon has an amazing selection of stuff, a decent distribution system, and good customer service.  But its current business model does seem troubling, and I don't think "predatory" is too strong a word for it.  We've seen all this before, of course, when the Wal*Marting of America a few decades back caused the deaths of so many small-town downtowns.  And Amazon has already proven itself capable of taking down behemoths:  witness the death of Borders earlier this year.

Isn't this the kind of corporate behavior that Occupy Wall Street has been about?

I like doing business with Amazon.  I just hope they have the sense to rein in their winner-take-all ambition soon.

Shine, greed, and some stuff about the NaNo novel.

I am bemused by the effrontery of various People in High Places these days.  First, of course, is the reaction of the One Percent to the 99 Percent protestors currently clogging up the parks across from their high-priced-real-estate-type offices.  I'll get to that in a minute.

In addition, though, there's the brouhaha over at the National Book Awards.  The nominating panel for the Young Adult books phoned in its nominations, some poor secretary at the other end of the phone wrote down Shine when he or she should have written down Chime, and nobody caught the mistake 'til the nominations were announced.  A couple of hours after the announcement, Chime was hastily added to the list of nominees.  But that made six nominees when there were only supposed to be five.  That must have bothered some folks, because then ensued a public back-and-forth over whether Shine deserved a nomination.

You can imagine how Lauren Myrakle, who wrote Shine, must have been feeling at this point.

But wait, it gets better.  The head of the National Book Foundation then called Ms. Myrakle and asked her to recuse herself and her book, "to preserve the integrity of the award," as if the award had any integrity left by then.  Keep in mind, if you please, that Shine is about a hate crime against a gay teenager -- kind of hot-button stuff.

It's all kind of amazingly unbelievable.  But everybody's got a blog these days, including a YA author named Libba Bray, who also happens to be married to Ms. Myrakle's agent.  She tells the whole story better than I ever could.  Here's a link to her post.  (The link will take you to Tamora Pierce's reply to the post.  Just scroll up the page.  And if you don't know who Tamora Pierce is, you should.  Her Alanna books ought to be required reading for tween girls.)

Okay, back to the 99 Percent.  I said I wasn't going to get into politics on this blog, but I don't think I'm going too far down that slippery slope by saying that the One Percent, and the money behind them, are going to do everything they can in coming weeks to undermine and fracture the coalition that Occupy Wall Street is building.  The ruling class really likes ruling, and it's not going to give up without a fight.

I flatter myself that I've been ahead of the curve on this 99 Percent thing.  I've felt for several years now that a lot of us have gotten the short end of the stick on the American Dream -- that we did what we were supposed to, and the system betrayed us.

Now don't worry, the novel I'm writing for NaNoWriMo won't be a polemic.  But one of the underlying issues in this book (assuming it pans out the way I'm planning!) will be greed:  what it is, how it gets out of hand, and whether there's a way to stop it.

For Christians, greed is a deadly sin; for Pagans, it's not that simple.  Our one and only moral rule is "if it harms no one, do what you will."  And I tend to object on general principles to the sort of black-and-white thinking that proclaims absolutes like "Greed is Evil!"  I'm coming to the conclusion (with the help of friends at kevinswatch.com) that greed is the extreme end of a continuum that starts with healthy emotions like ambition and desire.  Which means there ought to be a way to bring the greedy back to a normal, healthy emotional state without threatening them with burning in hell (especially since Pagans don't believe in hell).

I've yet to figure out how to do it in real life.  But I suspect that in the book, I'll have to resort to magic....

Social media advertising, or: Today's a holiday, but I didn't get time and a half.

Happy Labor Day.  So far today, I've finished a sweater, taken a picture of it, uploaded the pic to Ravelry, and blogged there about the project.  I've also posted a reply in a writer's usergroup on LinkedIn.  And put up my first post on Kindleboards (mainly so I could add the SwanSong link to my sig).  And set up a fan page on Facebook.  And linked the Facebook fan page and my Goodreads author page to the Twitter account (which is a good thing, because I've admittedly not quite got the hang of Twitter yet), and linked this blog to, uh, something.  I think it was Facebook, but I'm not sure now -- I kinda got lost during the linking frenzy.

And then I realized I need to post here.  If it all works out, posting here will send a notice to the FB fan page, which will send a link to Twitter, which is already linked to my author page at Amazon.  Seamless integration is a fine thing, no?

Welcome to the brave new world of the indie author.

Yesterday, Amy and I stopped by our local Borders to see if there was anything left worth buying ("FINAL 10 DAYS!!!").  While hunting for books in the business section on mediation or negotiation (prep for this year's NaNo novel), we came across several books on advertising via social media.  I didn't buy any of them, tho -- I figure that as fast as things move on teh intarwebz, they'll all be outdated in a week or two.

I already know the basic theory anyhow:  "Blog it, and they will come."  Of course, everybody's blogging these days.  So the challenge is to rise above the noise.  There are various suggestions -- tweet every day (really?  I'm not that interesting, honest); set up a FB fan page and post every day; join a bunch of discussion boards and become a valued member by (wait for it) posting every day.  And link everything to everything else in a moebius strip of self-reference. I gotta tell ya, this is starting to sound suspiciously like work.  Plus I'm not sure that I won't end up just talking to myself and selling no books, after all.

Oh yeah, I'm also supposed to be writing books, so that I have something to sell!  [whacks forehead]

Oh yeah, I have to tell you about signing up for Goodreads.  When I put in my name, Goodreads said:  "Are you the Lynne Cantwell who wrote 'Best in Show'?"  And there it was, the cover art for one of my short stories at Calderwood Books.  So I said, "Why, yes, I am!" And then Goodreads said, "Would you like an author page on Goodreads?"  And I said, "Why not?"  So, hey presto, I have an author page on Goodreads.  No idea who put up the cover art for "Best in Show" -- nobody has rated the story.  In any case, it feels pretty good to have *one* page somewhere on the web with links to all my published fiction.  I guess I should put up the cover art to my stuff on my FB fan page, so that I have everything there, as well.  Sigh.

Okay, hitting "publish" now.  Let's see if this Rube Goldberg contraption I've built actually works.  And then maybe I'll go and knit some more.  Or maybe take a nap.

More news, and an actual post.

First, the commercial:  As of today, SwanSong is now available for Kindle.  I'm working on getting a dead-tree version together.  I'll let you know when it's available.

Also, thanks to everybody who used my Smashwords coupon over the weekend!  I hope you enjoy the book.  If you do, please consider going back to Smashwords and leaving a short review.

Okay, phew, that's out of the way.  Thanks for your indulgence.
***
Shortly after I started this blog and committed to posting once a week, my Creative Brain went into hyperdrive.  "Oh boy, there are soooo many things I could talk about!  There's this, and this, and this -- I've got enough material for at least half a year!"  At that same time, a still, small voice -- a.k.a. Rational Brain -- said, "Y'know, you probably ought to write all of these great ideas down somewhere."  Alas, Responsible Brain, which is in charge of making lists and keeping me on track and whatnot, was at that precise moment distracted by the approach of Hurricane Irene.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Anyway, the List of Great Topics did not happen, so this week we will have to muddle along with a middling topic, which is:  Why Self-Publishing Is Not a Stupid Idea in Today's Publishing Environment.

Back in grade school, when I was just a little teeny writer, I saw an ad in our local paper from a "New York editor" who was coming to town to evaluate manuscripts for possible publication.  I pointed out the ad to my mom, who -- bless her heart -- actually called and made an appointment for me to see the guy.  So Mom and I met him in his hotel room (okay, it was a motel room -- my hometown didn't have any classy hotels) and he looked over my stuff.  To his credit, he gave me some decent on-the-spot advice about writing mysteries ("If you're going to end a chapter on a cliffhanger, don't continue the same scene on the very next page"), told me to keep writing, and sent us home without a contract.  I know now that it was probably a blessing because he represented a vanity publisher, and it would've cost Mom and Dad money to get my work published.

For decades, that's what self-publishing meant:  You paid a vanity press money to format your manuscript so that it looked like a real book and printed it for you, and then you paid them some more for copies of your book (some of which you sent to the relatives at Christmas and the rest of which languished in boxes in the garage).


At the same time, the real publishers, who paid you to publish your book, were still looking for, and signing, midlist authors:  writers whose books weren't bestsellers but which made the publisher enough money to justify publishing something else by the same writer.  It wasn't easy to break into print, but publishers back then were more willing to take a chance on somebody they'd never heard of.

That began to change (I am learning right now from Wikipedia) in 1979, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a tax case (Thor Power Tool Co. v. Commissioner, 439 U.S. 522 (1979)) that companies could not write off unsold inventory on their taxes simply because the stuff didn't sell.  Publishers, who were in the habit of keeping a lot of unsold books on hand, had to tighten up their inventory procedures.  In other words, they had to start concentrating on buying manuscripts that would sell.  This is why today, publishers prefer to buy manuscripts from authors who have made a name for themselves in some other arena:  politics, business, entertainment, whatever.  They figure the author's name recognition will help move books.

Pity the poor prospective midlist author in this environment.  If it was hard to break into publishing before Thor Power Tool, it was nearly impossible now.  For every J.K. Rowling, there were, oh, I dunno, thousands of other decent writers, maybe, who didn't get lucky.  Literary agents, who had stepped in as the first line of defense between publishers and would-be authors, had a field day picking and choosing clients.

Then the Internet began to level the playing field. First came print-on-demand (POD) operations like Lightning Source and Lulu, which take your formatted manuscript and your money and print it for you -- no editorial help offered (unless you pay extra).  Then came shady operators like PublishAmerica, which is an electronic version of the old vanity press, except worse.  Authors who submit their work to these places get a book-like object in return, but it's often a formatting mess, sometimes riddled with errors.  (Reportedly PublishAmerica is in the habit of introducing errors into books that weren't there in the original manuscript.)  No wonder self-publishing got such a bad name.


But then came the e-book.  That's when everything began to change.  Now you can send an electronic file to, say, Smashwords, for free, and Smashwords will sell it for you as an e-book.  Find an error?  Just fix it and upload a new file.

And the pay scale is better.  Under the old publishing model, the agent takes a cut, the publisher takes a big cut (which is only fair -- the publisher pays for the editing, printing, marketing, and warehouse space), and the author gets what's left.  But by selling an e-book on Amazon, the author can take home as much as 70% of the purchase price.  You do the editing and formatting, Amazon does the marketing.  The only thing an author might lose this way is the warm, fuzzy feeling you get by knowing somebody liked your work well enough to publish it.  But I tell you what:  warm, fuzzy feelings won't pay the rent.  And if the point of the exercise is to make money, and if you're going to sell at a midlist level either way, well....


Oh sure, there are still people in the publishing industry who look down their noses at self-publishing.  But that's changing, too.  I've been reading reports of agents (who really are left out in the cold by the new business model) who are setting up their own e-publishing houses and approaching indie authors (that's the hip, new label for self-published e-book authors) with pitches to publish their work.  And while dead-tree books still command a larger share of the market, e-book sales are growing faster.  Which is apparent every time you pass a Borders going out of business.


The times, they are a-changin'.


For me, self-publishing makes sense right now.  I survived broadcast journalism, another absurdly competitive business, in which it took me almost fifteen years to get a job in a major market.  I could spend another fifteen years working my way up the publishing industry ladder, the way I did in broadcasting -- but I'm eligible for retirement in eight.  And if I can make decent money by doing something I love without banging my head against the wall for the next fifteen years -- really, what have I got to lose by trying?


I just hope self-publishing hasn't jumped the shark.