Lots of links this week, so let’s get to it.
First up, there has been a huge controversy sparked by Harlquin’s announcement that they would be forming a self-publishing arm called Harlequin Horizons. Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware wrote a very helpful initial roundup of the plan and controversy, Kristin Nelson wondered if it was exploitation or empowerment, and How Publishing Really Works had similar questions. Following the uproar, the Romance Writers of America took the pretty drastic measure of revoking Harlequin’s “recognized publisher” status, and Harlequin announced that they are dropping the Harlequin name from the self-publishing program in order to distinguish the two.
Setting aside this controversy for a moment and the specifics of Harlequin’s operation, let me just say that in principle I don’t think publishers facilitating self-publishing is necessarily such a bad thing. However, there should be complete transparency, fair pricing, total disambiguation between traditional publishing arms and self-publishing arms, and every good faith attempt made to educate writers about the difference between the two. This industry obviously needs new revenue streams, and provided that the publisher’s program is genuinely nonexploitive and transparent I don’t see the problem, and I don’t see why publishers should continue to cede ground to self-publishing companies when they have every capacity to provide the same service. It just has to be done correctly.
Now then. Other news!
Mike Shatzkin has one of the most brilliant blogs on the future of publishing out there, and this week he had a great post about some conversations he’s had with agents about how our role will be changing in the new publishing landscape. He explores a possible change in the way agents earn money, the challenge of facilitating self-publishing, and his opinion (which I share) that “power is moving from ‘control of IP to control of eyeballs.'”
In e-book news, the NY Times noticed that quite a few people are reading on their smart phones, and raises the question about whether the future of e-books is with dedicated devices or devices people already have (my guess: a mix of both). And in gadget news, a (satiric?) beta tester of Apple’s iTablet spilled the beans to HuffPo/blew my mind, and Engadget released a helpful holiday gift guide for all the different e-readers.
My awesome colleague Sarah LaPolla passed along a really cool ode to the e-book in comic form. And HarperStudio posted a video ode to making a physical book.
Meanwhile, with all of our recent talk about efficiency and self-publishing and e-publishing, Rachelle Gardner had a really interesting post that worries about what will happen if every novel ever written is published.
Over at Upstart Crow, Michael Stearns noticed an interesting thing about the new Stephen King book UNDER THE DOME: it doesn’t have any jacket copy. He sees this as a sign that instant word of mouth is quickly becoming paramount, and it’s eliminating the browsing process.
As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Oprah is ending her daily talk show, which had quite a few book people gasping with panic. C. Max Magee at the Millions has a terrific recap of the history of Oprah and books.
Reader Eric Laing pointed me to this amazing post by Lynn Viehl where she shares her ledger publicly and shows the financial reality of a NY Times bestseller After taxes, commission, and expenses, Lynn made about $24,517.36 on her mass market bestseller TWILIGHT FALL.
Brace yourself for a month of decade retrospectives and best of lists. Quickly out of the gate is the Times UK, which has a list of the top 100 books of the decade, which is, incredibly annoyingly, spread out over 17 pages. Geez louise, Times UK, I don’t need to click 16 times to know that Cormac McCarthy won.
The National Book Awards were held, and congrats to the winners! And, your nominee for best sign of the times: Google sponsored the after-party.
For all of you needing help with your last NaNoWriMo push, there’s a pretty hilarious widget called Write or Die that punishes you in various forms when you stop typing. (via Neil Vogler)
And finally, as I’m sure you know the second Twilight movie New Moon came out this week. Writing in the Millions, Emily Colette Wilkinson examines the role of wealth aspirations in the TWILIGHT series. io9 has a pretty unreal gallery of the worst/most disturbing TWILIGHT products, and the Daily Beast has a gallery of the best TWILIGHT tattoos, including one of a woman who had an entire paragraph tattooed on her back. Wow. I’d just like to say right now that if anyone gets a tattoo of a corndog I’ll send you a signed copy of JACOB WONDERBAR.
Have a great weekend!
Tina Lynn says
Does placement count? I'm not sure if the sexiest woman on the planet can pull off a corndog tattoo.
John Ross Harvey says
A little late for Harelquin to announce when I chose iUniverse for my current project. I've used Lulu and its ok, cheap, and my product is all me, they produce it, I create it. iUniverse offered some help with the process, editorial (not all of which I agreed with of course), and other services during steps before the printed copy. Much more expensive than Lulu, but I don't see Lulu titles getting bought by Simon & Schuster or McClelland Stewart, iUniverse titles have been. Quality costs. Passing editorial stage now, cannot afford to spend for further editing so have to rely on my own judgement. Yes my novel is in the RF genre more specifically the RC genre. It'd be great if it made it to Oprah before she says adios.
I'd like to hear more on this branch by Harlequin, I'm not done in this genre.
Unknown artists like me, need these services to get their product out until a more established publisher realises their potential. Many big name authors of today are only now releasing a second book. (Niffenegger) This book is my sixth, but the genres are different from my first five.
Anonymous says
I don't think it's inherently wrong for Harlequin to offer self-publishing services. The problem is they won't be honest and say, "Hey, the fact that we're Harlequin doesn't give you any advantage over going to any other vanity publisher. In fact, you're probably smart to create your own imprint, and then purchase services like printing based on price, rather than put our vanity imprint on your spine and group yourself with a lot of lousy books."
Jen says
Is the Lynn Viehl link there? My eyeballs can't find it.
Marilyn Peake says
I love Sarah LaPolla’s Blog, and am so happy to have a short story published there!
I’ve been following the Harlequin story and thought it a good idea when they bowed to the RWA decision and at least changed the name of their self-publishing venture. There’s a tendency for new authors to become very excited, sometimes spending exorbitant amounts of money to advertise their books, whenever they get to play ball with the big guys. I’ve seen it time and time again, e.g. self-published and small press authors thinking they’re going to get rich simply because their book’s sold on Amazon or they had short stories accepted for publication by the Amazon Shorts program. All that really happens is that all the self-published and small press books sold on Amazon form the long tail of the distribution curve of Amazon’s sales: lots of small sales that taken altogether make a really nice sum of money for Amazon, but very little money for most of the individual authors. Sounds like the big publishing houses are interested in creating their own long-tail distribution of income.
Nathan Bransford says
Thanks, Jen, fixed.
Anonymous says
https://www.jackiekessler.com/blog/2009/11/19/harlequin-horizons-versus-rwa/
Not empowerment. EXPLOITATION.
Not self-publishing. VANITY PRESS.
Anonymous says
Here's another bit of news the blogosphere has been curiously quiet about:
https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/article/26196/
A NY Times bestselling author lost a lawsuit because she modeled oen of her characters after a good friend. Scary.
Emily White says
Corndog, huh? I think I could do that. Anything for a signed copy, right? 😉
Thanks for all the info! I see that my dreams of making Oprah's Book Club have been dashed! Oh well.
DG says
Nathan,
The topic of yesterday's post stayed with me all that day and well into the night. I went to B&N and saw a huge display for the upcoming Nook. There was a rep passing out slick brochures. I couldn't help but look around and up at the enormous store. He asked me if everything was okay. I asked him what will happen to the store if the Nook is successful. He stared back at me with that "dude I'm just here to promote the thing," look.
It left me wondering though, how an all e-book B&E will display its books. Will they use kiosks or large display posters that include the first few pages? I love to browse the first pages of new books. Again, the weight, the cover design, the smell of a new book, is all part of the experience. I'd hate to lose this experience for the efficiency of the e-book. Maybe they will tweak the distinct smell of a warm electronic device to make it smell like a new book. Surely Apple's engineers will find a way.
Then today's post came. I clicked through to the story about the iTablet. Now were talking! Please post a link that tells me where to line up to purchase that piece of technologic artistry.
Nikki says
Hey Nathan! The link you posted to Rachelle's blog isn't for the post you were referring to. Here's the one you want:
https://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/2009/11/self-publishing-rant-and-q4u.html
Nathan Bransford says
Thanks, Nikki.
Margaret Yang says
Did you hear the review of New Moon on NPR's "Fresh Air" today? It skewered the movie so skillfully that I cried laughing. I never thought a movie review could make me laugh, much less laugh that hard.
Margaret Yang says
Here's a link to the Fresh Air review…
https://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=120613720&m=120613719
Susan Quinn says
No can do, on the corndog tat.
Unless it's one of those washable ink ones that the kids wear. Does that count?
🙂
p.s. that would be awesome swag for your book signings!
Marilyn Peake says
Nathan,
Reading over the incredibly interesting information you provided about literary agents in situations where their clients go on to self-publish or e-publish, I have a question about the possibility of agents taking on authors who have already developed successful careers in self-publishing and e-publishing but don’t have huge sales due to lack of access to brick-and-mortar bookstores and advertising. I’m going to be fairly open here, take a risk and mention a few of my own experiences as an example. I’ve had many awesome things happen in my career as a small press author. I’ll describe some of the things that happened with three of my books. My trilogy of children’s fantasy adventure novels, THE FISHERMAN’S SON TRILOGY, has come close to being very successful several times before the rug was pulled out from under it in terms of distribution channels. It got to the point where I was receiving emails from people all across the country about how much they loved these books. I started meeting people in online groups who said, "Are you THE Marilyn Peake? Did you write THE FISHERMAN’S SON?" (That was both strange and exhilarating, I have to admit.) I had a TV Producer begin building a Reading Rainbow type of show around THE FISHERMAN’S SON. All pretty exciting stuff! Then a big company bought up the distribution channel through which THE FISHERMAN’S SON TRILOGY was being sold. After that, I received an email from a library. At the height of the HARRY POTTER craze, they had decided to devote an entire display cabinet to THE FISHERMAN’S SON TRILOGY and announce it as another great fantasy for people who love the HARRY POTTER books. The library built the display. They even invited me to speak there, but it was in a different state too far away for me to travel at the time. I casually asked them if they could tell me who the publisher was, since I knew the distribution channel had stopped distributing small press books. Turned out the library had purchased POD copies from another company that had published the first two books in the trilogy for only a short time and no longer paid me royalties. I didn’t mention this to the library, I was just so thrilled that they were so interested in my books. But around that time I gave up on advertising the books. Overall, I’ve sold hundreds of copies of my books and have been asked several times to speak at Science Fiction and Fantasy Conventions, but I gave up on active marketing.
So here’s my question. In this time of flux within the publishing industry, do you think agents might be interested in representing small press authors based on a query letter describing lots of interest in their small press books, but not necessarily huge sales, since in the past distribution channels were limited for small press books? It sounds like agents might continue to represent their own clients for whom their own books sell this way. So I wondered if agents might agree to work in reverse: take on clients who already have a large collection of books selling in this way, with the potential to break out on a larger scale with an agent who could negotiate with larger distribution channels?
Thermocline says
Michael Stearns' posting got me thinking about book trailers. I wonder if they will start to supplant jacket copy as e-books become more prevalent.
Amazon is already posting trailers for some books. It's not so difficult to imagine walking into B&N someday and trailers of the books they are promoting appear on your nook.
Nathan Bransford says
marilyn-
With the commission model agents can really only afford to take on clients where the potential revenue justifies the time it takes. And right now, candidly, it's extremely difficult to place authors who have modest track records for the types of advances/royalties that agents need to justify the time because bookstores base their orders so heavily on what previous books sold, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That said, it may change down the line if agents become more like consultants or charge fees as Shatzkin wonders, or if the landscape changes and it's easier to break out authors than it is now.
Nathan Bransford says
And this is another reason to like an e-book era – your success isn't dependent on bookstores guessing correctly.
Josin L. McQuein says
One problem with the Harlequin mess is that they're calling it "self-publishing" when it's not. It's VANITY publishing. Hh owns the ISBNs, not the author. And the representative Hh had fielding questions didn't know how to answer many of them. She had no idea how to answer whether or not the use of 1st publication rights would impact a writer's chances of selling the book (in fact, she claimed that the writer never used up 1st publication rights when they published with Hh and placed the book up for sale…)
They're handing out bad advice, like "get a bound copy to send to agents!!!", which is contrary to the specifications on most agents' sites.
They imply that this might be a jumping off point for career success, but don't point out the chances of such things actually happening. Average sales for vanity titles are abysmal.
The tie-in with the Harlequin brand didn't just impact the company, but the reputation of every Harlequin author who went the commercial route, too.
And even though they've said they're removing Harlequin's name from the imprint (which would theoretically keep the Hh authors from running everywhere and claiming "I'm published by Harlequin") SFWA has said they won't appeal their stance on HQ until it drops the line all together.
HQ stepped in it royally.
And Nathan, what about people who already have a corndog tattoo? 😛
Finny says
actually, the RWA/MWA/SFWA vs. HQN controversy is fascinating to follow. 🙂 I was wondering when you'd weigh in, but you stuck to the facts and genealities so I guess I won't know how you feel about the whole bit?
ryan field says
Another exciting week. It would have been impossible to predict some of these things three years ago.
Donna Gambale says
You made my Friday afternoon with that worst/most disturbing Twilight products link. I think my favorite was the pillow with the "Stupid lamb" jumping off a cliff. Definitely laughed out loud. Creepiest? Either the Edward silhouette stalker or the Edward face shower curtain. The shower curtain reminded me of the Wizard of Oz, for some reason.
Terry says
Thanks, lots to think about and the Twi-crap was fun.
Good weekend to you, too.
John Ross Harvey says
Author Solutions through iUniverse do not own the copyright, you do, they provide the ISBN but it is yours. Why think that a new name by the same group is different?
I cannot sell my Lulu books to another publisher, they own that, as owning it yourself is not offered to Canadians. Published by You vs. Published by Lulu which all the choice I was given there.
I can sell my iUniverse title.
Gordon Jerome says
Agents as consultants won't work. What are they going to consult on? Teach people how to format in HTML and upload graphics to the Kindle DTP? I mean really, that information is already out there for anyone who wants it.
The fact is, agents get authors money, and take a cut of it. There's nothing else for an agent to do. Consultation means they have an expertise, but the knowledge will be available mostly for free–in fact it already is.
But I don't think self-publishing is going to rob any agent of anything. Authors still want to be able to say that someone else published them. In fact, that will be the only glory left to the author besides the actual sales themselves.
Josin L. McQuein says
John Ross Harvey –
You CAN buy your own ISBN through Lulu and self-publish with yourself as the publisher. It's one of their options.
Nathan Bransford says
gordon-
I agree that historically an agent's job has been to sell and handle contracts, but I still think agents could have a potential role in self-publishing. For one, we could be more like concert promoters/managers and leverage our own brand to help the books stand out. Second, we could function as packagers and help authors navigate the different elements of putting a book together and perhaps get them better deals with cover designers, copyeditors, etc. And third, we'd be here to sell subrights and to work out a distribution deal to get the book into bookstores in the event it starts taking off.
Admittedly the financial model for this is murky if it's strictly a commission-based structure, but I think you'll start seeing agents think about their jobs much differently if the industry continues to shed the midlist authors that used to be agents' bread and butter.
Anonymous says
Great mix to this week's round-up.
The i-Reader-Phone app … OMG, I might just jump the fence and get one of those. Though I don't drive, the drive app w/transparent camera view (so you can multi-task & view) and other features made me go, Huh. Maybe …
Esp. liked the Shatkin link / post – I need to revisit tonight & read (long) comments but the issues he raised seem like a devoted blog post (for you) esp. since you're gung-ho digital and an agent & all (or, as many as you can publically discuss) dimensions this entails /reflects.
Digital or print (and I'm in the pro-print side), as someone who has representation, I'm keenly interested in this issue – esp. digital rights. What posts like Shaktin leave out, in my opinion, is the relationship element with an agent. I don't view my agent as – how do I put this? – some submission appendage or gopher. He is a partner in everything I'm doing – not writing but I run stuff by him and let him know what I'm working on. Yes, it's a business relationship but he also knows more about my life-life than most people and I trust his advice, implicitly and totally.
I have a hair trigger (temper, tendency to respond w/out thinking, obsessiveness) etc. that needs to be kept out of public view. If I can remember to stop, pause, wait a day and then send him an email and wait for his response, I'm better off. He's the filter I don't have (or, because I'm off in la-la writer land) consistently.
I don't even know how to describe what that one (of many) crucial function is that he provides. But, given that I know my shortcomings well enough to know I'm incapable of certain business dealings – like, um, contracts and royalties – I'm very good with the 15%.
This is going to probably sound snobby, but there's a prestige element to having representation, esp. if you're with, say, Curtis Brown. And people don't factor that into the 15% – your rep. as a writer gets a bump by being signed and opens other doors to resources and people.
As for the digital revenue that people (mostly, it seems, ones w/out agents) obsess on "losing" & how that plays into the 15% .. I say, guess what people, we're in the middle of something and the resolution's being played out in real time (or, really slow publishing time.) Agents generally want to make as much money for their client as possible AND think about their long-term prospects. I have (a lot of) confidence, if anyone can figure out the business of digital (I still love books, paper & glue fetish I suppose), it will be the agents. That's my take, at least. Again, insofar as you can discuss, Mr. B, I and others would be interested in your take. 🙂
Moses says
I just got my Kobe Bryant tattoo. Thanks for the copy of your book!
p.s. why should a new writer go with a traditional publisher today when ebooks could rule the earth by the time his book hits the shelves? I still have plenty to learn about the industry.
Adam says
It is telling, and a bit unsettling to see that apparently there is more money in exploiting wannabe authors than there is in publishing books.
Marilyn Peake says
Thanks for answering my question, Nathan. I guess it’s too early to see where all this will end up. If many self-published and small press authors are presently without distribution channels, the same would seem to hold true for agented authors who self-publish or publish through small press. Now, if the big publishing houses like Harlequin open up self-publishing branches and have access to major distribution channels even for those books, this could wipe out their present competition from places like AuthorHouse and iUniverse. At that point, though, is it really self-publishing, or are the big-imprint self-publishing companies actually small press companies that will defeat competition from the long-tail distribution success of places like AuthorHouse and iUniverse? It will be interesting to see where the future leads.
eBooks from small publishing companies can’t compete with eBooks from the major houses because of another financial consideration: money for advertising. An advertised eBook with the imprint of a well-known big publishing house usually sells many more copies due to advertising. Right now, though, everything’s in flux. The small eBook publisher where many of my books are published has opened up eBook services to authors from the big publishing houses and has started signing contracts to publish some of their books in eBook format. For many years, he’s already been publishing non-mainstream works written by authors with other books published by the big publishing houses. For example, Senior Fulbright Fellow and Thurber House writer-in-residence author Randall Silvis is published both by the big publishing houses and my own publisher. I’ve had the great pleasure of working with him on book promotion projects in the past.
Nathan Bransford says
marilyn-
I actually don't know that it's advertising (most books published by major publishers don't have much advertising) as much as bookstore placement that drives word of mouth about a title. I think in the future things are going to be much much more word of mouth driven, and e-books will be spread much more virally than print books because they can be bought instantaneously and because people are more plugged in and connected than before. We'll see though.
Dara says
That whole Harlequin thing has disturbed me since it was announced. Mainly it's because of what RWA and MWA have said and them saying they really won't recognize books published by Harlequin (which is a lot because of all their imprints). It confuses me that RWA would say that since there's a substantial number of their members that have been or will be published by their traditional presses.
I'm hoping that RWA and MWA can see how their new guidelines really hurts many of their members. I guess time will tell…
Anyway, the Twilight links were funny and made me smile despite the whole Harlequin fiasco. Thanks!
L. T. Host says
*waits for someone with a corndog tattoo to show up in the comments*
Joseph L. Selby says
Seems a little unfair to announce the best books of the decade a year before the decade is over. What if the best book comes out next year?
Matt Mc says
Not to be repetitive, or annoying, but my question regarding yesterday's post got lost in the hundreds of comments. I think it applies to this post too, and I'd like to see what some people think.
Will the increase of e-books lead to an increase of books self-published digitally? That's the whole glory (or curse, depending on your POV) of the digital age–that anyone and everyone can join in. I'm just curious if e-books will do for writers what MySpace did for musicians, and YouTube did for everybody. It takes zero time, and very little money to convert a Word document to a PDF and upload the thing online.
Matt Mc says
Not to be repetitive, or annoying, but my question regarding yesterday's post got lost in the hundreds of comments. I think it applies to this post too, and I'd like to see what some people think.
Will the increase of e-books lead to an increase of books self-published digitally? That's the whole glory (or curse, depending on your POV) of the digital age–that anyone and everyone can join in. I'm just curious if e-books will do for writers what MySpace did for musicians, and YouTube did for everybody. It takes zero time, and very little money to convert a Word document to a PDF and upload the thing online.
Nathan Bransford says
matt-
I think that's inevitable. Rachelle's post today has some of the drawbacks. I think it's just going to necessitate new gatekeepers and tastemakers.
Shanann E. Schnell says
@NathanBransford; of course self publishing will be more adherent to those who are wanting to be noticed and just get their work out there, easy peasy japenesey, sorry to be so hasty! HA! : uh hummm like always, does not make a difference as to the opposed stay worthy of the righteous act of becoming a well known author introduced to the public, under traditional terms, opposing the marketing and sales grouping that can back the betrothed. Agents can really make a difference in determing whether self publish or traditional is best accounted for…However corndog tattoos are terrific fun! -just opinionated… and happy!
Wonderful Wishes,
S*
Marilyn Peake says
Nathan,
If advertising doesn’t play a role, maybe right now it’s other things that help eBooks from the big publishing houses sell more copies, e.g. previous advertising and the fame of the paperback and hardcover copies already in the market. For example, if you look at Fictionwise.com, Dan Brown’s eBooks and Stephen King’s eBooks are selling there. Despite that, Darrell Bain, a small press author from the same small eBook publishing house where I’m published, made Fictionwise eBook Author of the Year in 2005 for most copies sold plus best reviews. However, that was in 2005 before eBooks were more mainstream. I’m guessing that now, in 2009 with the new popularity of eBooks, Dan Brown and Stephen King will make a lot more money on their eBooks than small press eBook authors ever did. After Brunonia Barry self-published THE LACE READER, she spent $50,000 on advertising and marketing, so that her book might get picked up by a big publishing house. It did get picked up and went on to become a best-seller. I think advertising money is usually necessary to allow a book to become well-known enough to succeed. Darrell Bain’s books caught on through word of mouth at Science Fiction and Fantasy Conventions. Had Darrell Bain had access to huge sums of advertising money, I think he might be well-known by now.
Shanann E. Schnell says
P.S. e- books and kindle just doesnt cut the senses when it comes to "smelling a good ol' paper page turning classic!" love that! S*
Marilyn Peake says
How about a henna tattoo of a corndog? Henna tattoos are pretty cool. I once had a henna tattoo of a tiger done at an amusement park. Have a great weekend!
Mary says
The 17 page spread of the Times list riled me, too! I quit at page 5. Thanks for telling us who won. 🙂
Tori says
Are you serious about the corn dog comment? Because I would so get one! I would love a copy of your book:D
Nathalie says
Your blog is a guilty pleasure. Thanks for the Friday Recap.
Nathan Bransford says
tori-
Well, I'm afraid it's not until 2011, so I can't make good on the promise yet!
Jil says
Will everything on e=books disappear when the satellites are knocked out as predicted on Sixty Minutes the other week? Is future work doomed to extinction if there are no print copies?
Karen Schwabach says
Hm, no jacket copy on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows either, at least not the first printing– lemme look. No, there is. It says:
"We now present the seventh and final installment of the epic tale of Harry Potter."
And that's all. I like it. Understated, like those old New Yorker ads for decadent things made of gold.
Nathan Bransford says
The e-readers that have wireless use cellular networks, not satellites.