Two Sides to the Self-Publishing Coin

This morning, my dear friend Allison Pang sent me an interesting link to a post by blogger/author Joe Konrath.

Konrath, a successful self-published thriller writer, responds to an article by Richard Curtis regarding whether or not "authors make good publishers." Konrath says, "Yay." Curtis says, "Nay."

Let's take a look at what they each think about the matter:

CURTIS:

Do authors make good publishers? The answer is No. But it’s fascinating to watch them try.

Years ago as the e-book revolution dawned, we said that in order to keep pace with the new digital culture, authors would have to become more like publishers. “As electronic technology hurtles too fast for even futurists to keep up with,” we wrote, “a generation of readers is emerging that will not accept text unless it is interactively married to other media.” (See Author? What’s an Author?)

Unfortunately, in order to master publishing skills, authors face the prospect of abandoning commitment to their muse. Digital technology has given writers the key to the funhouse, and few have been able to resist the allure of all those glittering tools empowering them to steal fire from Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Random House.

In the past year a number of prominent authors have accepted the challenge with varying degrees of success. We’re thinking in particular of Cory Doctorow, Seth Godin and J. A. Konrath. Whether their move to the other side (as publishers ourselves we’re in no position to call it the dark side) proves detrimental to their writing careers is a question that will play out in time. But because their experiments are being watched and emulated by other writers, these adventures are worth noting.

[...]

For authors, the lesson to be learned from these examples is that you must distinguish between writing and publishing your writing and weigh the goals and satisfactions of those two vastly different processes. In this age of instant gratification and entitlement the idea of long, uncompensated apprenticeships seems to be a relic of another age, But the rigors of artistic achievement are no different from those of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance or the Age of Enlightenment. Talent and hard work will out, but they must be leavened over time.

Publishers too have a lot to learn from the efforts of these authors, particularly from Cory Doctorow who has more and fresher ideas than an army of old-line publishers. A review of his Publishers Weekly articles detailing his innovations will generously reward every editor young or old.

Read the rest of the post (and see cited examples) HERE

KONRATH:

Yesterday, respected agent Richard Curtis posted an article he wrote called Do Authors Make Good Publishers?

His conclusion is: No.

He cited me as one of his examples, and quoted my website. I wish he'd contacted me personally, because the quote he took is out of date.

It's my fault for not updating my website regularly, but I've since had a 180 degree change of stance on self publishing.

Authors should self-publish.

As ebooks continue to gain ground, and print continues to lose ground, and publishers and bookstores continue to report losses, this industry isn't nearly as stable as it once was. In fact, I'm not sure the industry will survive.

In an ebook-dominated world, are publishers even needed?

I can't think of a single, compelling reason to allow publishers to keep 52.5% of ebook royalties and give authors just 17.5%--especially when any writer can make 70% by uploading to Kindle themselves.

[...]

If you browse the Kindle genre bestseller lists, between 20% and 90% of the authors listed there are self-published authors. In some cases, because of the higher royalties Amazon offers, these writers are making more money than traditionally pubbed authors. I earn $2.09 on a $2.99 ebook. I only earn 82 cents on a $4.79 ebook published by my print publisher.

Read the entire post HERE

I remain Switzerland on this one. Both parties make some merited arguments, but in my opinion, there's no real answer to this question. I think it all depends on the author himself/herself, what they're willing to do, what networking connections they have, etc. It doesn't work or not work--it varies tremendously.

Of course, traditional publishing certainly offers a great deal of opportunities that self-publishing does not--editing, ad/promo, marketing, larger distribution channels, etc.--but with some elbow-grease and talent, self-pub can still gain an author acclaim and value, as Konrath and others have shown. But that author needs to be open-minded and dedicated to his/her pub and ready to work hard and learn the industry ropes. If not, traditional publishing is the only way to go.

What's That Smell--Bacon or a Book?

For the first time in months, I have a moment to breathe in the office. Granted, I have about ten things on my to-do list, but it's 4:15 on a Friday afternoon and I've been working my butt off all day. So, I'm giving myself ten minutes to surf the net.

And what did I happen on but something hilarious over at Richard Curtis's blog, E-Reads. I laughed-out-loud in my cubicle for about three minutes (that's very long in my world these days!).

Allow me to present you with one of Richard's oldies-but-goodies, "The Best of E-Reads: Aerosol Makes Your Nook Smell Like Crunchy Bacon":

From time to time we bring back some of the more popular articles and blogs posted on E-Reads. This one is from November 2009.
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A while back we wrote up a book lover who said she was reluctant to buy a Kindle “unless Amazon comes out with a special ‘book scented’ Kindle.” (See If They Can Make the Kindle Smell Like a Book, Maybe She’ll Buy One). It was all kind of a joke, but an enterprising manufacturer took it seriously enough to produce a line of aromatics simulating book scents. The aromas include New Book Smell and Classic Musty. The product is trademarked as Smell of Books™ and here’s how their website describes it:

Does your Kindle leave you feeling like there’s something missing from your reading experience?

Have you been avoiding e-books because they just don’t smell right?

If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the e-book bandwagon, you’re not alone. Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book.

But all of that is changing thanks to Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer.

Now you can finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much. With Smell of Books™ you can have the best of both worlds, the convenience of an e-book and the smell of your favorite paper book. Smell of Books™ is compatible with a wide range of e-reading devices and e-book formats and is 100% DRM-compatible.

Whether you read your e-books on a Kindle or an iPhone using Stanza, Smell of Books™ will bring back that real book smell you miss so much.

Among the five smells offered is “Crunchy Bacon”. This is a welcome novelty for noses jaded by such natural book fragrances as grass, leather, printer’s ink, and decaying paper. Hopefully, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France will invest heavily in shpritzing their collections with Crunchy Bacon. Some other but lesser known aromas associated with books are baked lamb shank, General Cho’s Chicken, and asparagus vinaigrette.

On a more scientific note, Henry Fountain of the New York Times reports on research to quantify old-book odors to help librarians preserve books more effectively. Fountain describes how conservators “analyzed the volatiles produced by 72 samples of old paper of different types and in varying condition from the 19th and 20th centuries, using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. They found that some compounds were reliable markers for paper with certain characteristics — high concentrations of lignin or rosin, for example, which make paper degrade relatively quickly.”

Read the full article HERE

While this post obvious takles the topic in a humorous and silly way, there's certainly something to what's being discussed. What book-lover doesn't get a rush from that somewhat-musty old-book smell?

A favorite pastime of mine (I say pastime because I haven't had any time in the present or even recent past to do this!) is wandering around rare book stores. Not only do I love to look at the brittle pages, the cover stains, etc. but the smell of a book carries with it so much history. Experiencing even a little piece of that history is thrilling to me, even if it is just in a scent.

I have a small, but lovely, collection of rare books myself and sometimes it makes me feel better after a bad day just to look at them, to think about their pasts--who touched them before me, who read them, if the book was a gift to its original owner, what part of the country it was read in, etc. etc.

One of my personal favorites is a Robert Frost greeting card (not the one at this link but for some nice history!)--it's one of merely a couple hundred copies printed by Joe Blumenthal, Frost's dear friend and printer. Normally, it wouldn't be all that exciting--it's just a greeting card. But this one was unique--inside the little card-book was a folded note from Blumenthal himself to the card's recipient, letting him know that Robert Frost dropped off his manuscript that day.

I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty damn cool.

And it smells too.

Not bad, just chock full of history.

Multimedia Rights No Longer Only for the Film Buffs

This morning, Twitter pointed me to an article on E-reads.com by Richard Curtis. This instantly caught my attention because I'm having lunch with a literary agent, Richard Curtis, tomorrow (he's the agent on the fabulous Jillian Stone novels I recently acquired). But whether it's the same man or not, remains to be seen--and either way, the article is an intriguing one.

I've been in the publishing industry for four years now and until I read Mr. Curtis's article, I was unaware that e-book rights were separated into two different factions--straight text and multimedia. I was also ignorant of the fact that the standard boilerplate electronic rights include straight-text only for a publishing house, so as not to interfere with dramatic rights (film/tv). I've never seen it in a contract, so how was I to know?

But apparently, I'm finding out just in time, as the creation and growing popularity of enhanced e-books is forcing some literary agencies to recall that boilerplate and no longer retain those rights, according to Mr. Curtis's post:

Since the dawn of the digital age – call it Year 2000 – publishers and agents have separated e-rights into two categories. One is verbatim text rights – plain old e-books. The second is interactive use of texts in combination with music, video, audio and other media – what have come to be called enhanced e-books. Commonly, agents struck the latter provision out of publisher boilerplate. Why? Because film studios and networks felt that enhancements incurred on their ability to dramatize the books they acquired.

But with development of vooks and similar hybrids of text and other media (“Vook” = Video + Book), publishers are challenging the assumption that interactive rights must be reserved to authors. As enhanced e-books become viable and valuable, publishers want to know why they are abandoning rights to movie and television companies.

That is the background for the memo that a major literary agency has sent to a number of film agents informing them that henceforth they cannot count controlling those interactive rights.

The memo declared in part:

“As a result of this fundamental change in publishing, we will no longer be able to agree to the boilerplate language in most studio option/purchase agreements that address multimedia. These clauses usually restrict the author’s reserved electronic book rights to digital text only. We cannot agree to this limitation. Authors’ reserved ebook rights must now include the right to grant enhanced digital rights in their work, including all the elements mentioned above.” The memo made it clear that “enhanced digital editions, as long as they are non-dramatic, are best exploited by the author in conjunction with the publisher.”

Despite this distinction it’s not likely that Hollywood is going to take this shift lying down. Where enhancements end and movie effects begin will certainly become a bone of contention, so this is going to get interesting and probably adversarial. Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.

Though enhanced e-books are on everybody’s tongue these days, we suspect you won’t see a flood of them any time soon. The cost and complexity of clearing permissions and the time it takes to produce works of real quality will in all likelihood restrict the number released to a precious few. But that may not be the point, as we will eventually see when the titans of publishing and Hollywood clash on the field of enhancements.

See the post HERE

Personally, I think this is a fabulous idea. Many publishers have already jumped on the enhanced e-book bandwagon, and while yes, it is a slower building trend, I know a lot of houses have much in the works regarding this new form of multimedia. (I wish I could tell you specifically what I'm referring to but I can't--you'll just have to keep your eyes peeled!)

Not only do publishers have a lot of great ideas to implement, but the movie biz isn't capitalizing on enhanced e-books anyway. And in contrast to what one commentor on Mr. Curtis's post, Scott Nicholson, suggests--"a Hollywood studio is about as well-equipped as a publisher to release an ebook today, and probably MORE equipped to release an enhanced e-book"--I don't believe that Hollywood does necessarily have that capability. Though the film/tv and book businesses may seem to have similarities to some, they are run--and behave--nothing alike. They have different distribution channels and different ways of producing their products. It's not a mix-and-match scenario.

I can, of course, understand the studios concerns over Vooks, which are completely different than many of the enhanced e-books hitting e-shelves. Quite frankly, as some of you may already know, Vooks don't seem much different to me in concept than movies in the first place (clearly they are different, but they are very similar in many ways). But other kinds of enhanced e-books are horses of another color.

Scribner and Simon and Schuster released Nixonland as an enhanced e-book, for instance (Check out a video demo HERE). In this non-fiction book, S&S embedded video into the e-books e-pages:

The book, a history of how Nixon used the modern media, makes use of archival video footage from Simon & Schuster parent, CBS (NYSE: CBS). Among the 27 videos inserted into the text of the iBookstore’s enhanced e-book, there’s an original interview with the author conducted by CBS News Face the Nation anchor Bob Schieffer. (paidcontent.org)

You can also take the The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss as another good example. The enhanced e-book that has shown up with the creation of the iPad is pretty phenomenal. Kids can click on words and illustrations and the e-book will say the word aloud. It's an amazing tool to help with literacy. And Grand Central Publishing went the fiction route with its release of an enhanced e-book for David Baldacci's Deliver Us From Evil in March 2010. It was "an innovative 'Writer’s Cut' eBook that will hurtle readers inside David’s creative process" (DavidBaldacci.com).

But, of course, you do also have books like Flipped, which was recently released as a movie tie-in enhanced e-book by Knopf for Young Readers:

The FLIPPED enhanced e-book movie tie-in will include an exclusive video feature about the making of the movie with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews from the director and cast as well as three original songs written and recorded by author Wendelin Van Draanen. It will also feature eight video clips of key scenes from the movie. With sixteen full-color photos from the film and four video interviews with the author, as well as a sneak peek of Van Draanen's latest romantic comedy Confessions of a Serial Kisser, the enhanced e-book edition has much to offer fans and will appeal to readers of all ages. (PRNewswire)

Enhanced e-books of that caliber just may help the two industries merge as Nicholson suggests. There are lots of ways this one could play out. I'm very curious to see which reigns supreme (to steal a line from my beloved "Iron Chef").