Speakeasy

Nathan Bransford has been getting some queries from people about when to tell your agent certain things, like if you had a previous agent, other offers etc and he’s been kind enough to answer them.

And continuing on from yesterday’s post, if you want to hear an author’s opinion about free content and the publishing industry, then head over to HarperStudio where they have interviewed Seth Godin, author of Tribes: We Need you to Lead us.
He says, “Publishing is far too focused on the pub day. The event of the publication. This is a tiny drip, perhaps the least important moment in a long timeline. As soon as publishers see themselves as marketers and agents and managers and developers of content, things change.”
If you’ve read The Book is Dead then you might feel the same way. I know I do.

Following on from the Google v Authors Guild settlement, Random has stated that they are going to change how they deal out e-royalties. Instead of basing royalties on the list price, they will base them on the actual net moneys they have received as publisher. Booksquare goes into this really well.
Their reasoning for why they are doing this? – “With the widespread use by consumers of electronic devices such as the iPod, the Amazon Kindle, and the Sony Reader, a significant market for e-books and digitally delivered audio content is finally ready to emerge," the letter stated. "In response, Random House is making major investments in our digital infrastructure and is creating digital files of active titles so that they are available for sales as e-books, as downloadable audio, and for Internet search and discovery."
This all sounds really good and promising doesn’t it? But the new royalty rate for sales will be only 25% of the amount received for all sales. For a breakdown of what authors should expect to get, Richard Curtis has put this in actual figures using a recent Random House contract and it doesn’t look good for authors.
According to his math: ‘A recent Random House contract states that on all copies of a work sold as an electronic book, the royalty will be 25% of the US suggested retail price until the book’s advance has earned out, and 15% of the list price thereafter. Under the current (pre-change) royalty structure, on a book retailing for, say, $10.00, the e-book royalty would be $2.50 per download at 25%, then $1.50 per download when the royalty rate shifts to 15%.By contrast, the new royalty of 25% of the net receipts comes to something like $1.25 per sale on a $10.00 book (25% of 50%).’
While Random’s line is that the new figures reflect the market and the rates offered by their competitors, they seem to be ignoring the big giants – Google and Amazon.
If e-royalties are getting you down though, you could do what Paulo Coehlo does and give readers free copies of his books to download. For him, it leads to an increase in sales of the hardcopy editions. Go figure.

Sorry for the slackness of blogs lately, but you may have noticed a change over at AWMonline. Apart from the red colour, there are a few other changes as well. Go and have a sticky.
In other news, Google and the Authors Guild/Association of American Publishers have finally reached a settlement about Google’s BookSearch.
The settlement of $125 million was reached and now the program is up and running again.

Some of the good things to come out of this 3-year long settlement: a creation of a ‘Book Rights Registry’, increased access to out-of-print books and additional ways for consumers to purchase books, including building an electronic market.

You can read the full report here.

Saturday 1 November marked the start of the annual National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWri Mo) where participants attempt to push out a 50,000 word novel in a month. If you’re not familiar with the initiative, it’s not about quality, it’s about quantity – where people enlist to take risks, push boundaries and imprint discipline through their writing. It’s the literary equivalent of a country pie-eating contest and sometimes, equally gruesome and glorious.
Last year, more than 100,000 people took part. Of that, 15,000 people submitted their 50,000 word manuscript on deadline and entered “the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever” according to the organisation. “They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.”
If you choose to take part in the initiative, you sign up the website, make regular logs of your word count, and get writing. Some people plan beforehand which appeals to me, but a lot of Wrimos (as they’re affectionately called) dive in without hesitation. It’s similar to a bootcamp attempt of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way – where tapping into the realms of imagination and intuition take initial precedent over fine forms and craft.
A writing colleague of mine refuses to partake in NaNoWriMo. “It’s a joining activity,” she explains, bending her fingers to indicate the quotation sign. “I don’t want to partake in camaraderie.” She prefers to forge her own writing path, but as for me, I’m vaguely tempted. I like camaraderie when it comes to writing. And, it’s only 3 November. I could still catch up.
“NaNoWriMo is all about the magical power of deadlines,” says the site. “Give someone a goal and a goal-minded community and miracles are bound to happen… novels will be written.”

We’ve all heard that different people use different sides of their brain more strongly. In my case, I’m a right-side brain person through and through. I’m “big-picture” orientated (a visionary, as I like to call it). I respond strongly to feeling and am motivated to take risks. I am fascinated by mythology, philosophy and religion and find myself fueled by imagination and inspired by symbols. Sound like you? If it is, us right-brainers tend to be impulsive too – we want big change now… dagnamit! – and we are the kind of people who usually just “get it…” according to News Digital Media, which published a test to determine which side you use.
I attempt to train the left-hand side of my brain, as an athelete trains their body. Left-brainers have got a lot going for them. They’re logical, good at maths, very practical, look at the facts, and are detail-orientated. They recognize patterns, formulate strategies, and tend to stay on the safe side. All good things, when you come to think of it. They’re the people that remember to take lunch to work, look both ways before crossing the street, and always do up their fly up after they’ve been the bathroom.
So I’m training the left-side of my brain by using my mouse with my left-hand. Apart from the semi-valid claims to being ambidextrous, the exercise works so far; I take lunch to work and sometimes look before crossing the street. I’ve since investigated other exercises of right and left brain training, in the hope to benefit my creative writing. I’ve found this: mind-mapping, which is an interesting blend of right-brain creative exploration and left-brain order-making.
Over at The Writers Technology Companion blog, they’ve been looking at where ideas come from. Mind-mapping is a definitely a great tool to record your ideas. Ordinarily, I keep small inspiration notebooks and pens in all my bags, so when ideas strike I don’t forget them! I’ll be trying mind-mapping from now on as it’s defined as “a kind of free-association method in which ideas are generated by association with a central idea, and then each of the generated ideas in turn becomes a source of inspiration for further brainstorming.”
Seems like mind-mapping is like the vesica pisces of your brain – you get to sit on the fence and utilise both sides. Whilst I will continue to bust out my notepad and pen, you could also use an online software tool like iMindMap.

Speaking earlier of promoting your book, sometimes there isn’t much you can do when the marketing team decides to promote you as something that you aren’t in order to sell books. This can backfire especially when your target audience will avoid the type of cover that your book ends up having. Whether you want to admit it or not we all judge books by their covers. Diane Shipley wrote about ‘chick-lit’ covers on The Guardian’s blog a while ago. For an example of this take Louise Erdrich’s new novel A Plague of Doves. It is a novel that intertwines different voices and spans generations of Native Americans on one reservation. Topics covered include lynchings, racism, spousal abuse, kidnapping and quite a few other dark topics. Don’t be put off though, it is a fantastic novel but not normally one I would pick up because this is the Australian cover -

   (hardly looks like a plague does it)

Even though the American cover is more appropriate -

Well, Bookninja has decided it was time to turn the tables. He ran a contest for the best made up cover of a previously published title. The results are hilarious (and an excellent exercise in marketing for beginners).

And if you are in serious need of a belly laugh visit  the World of Longmire to see the opposite. She has taken a bunch of existing covers of romance novels and written new titles. Enjoy.

If you want to promote your book but you aren’t quite up to the TV spot stage, Michelle Moran (author of Nefertiti) is guest blogging over on Nathan Bransford’s blog. Part 1 of her guest blog outlines what the marketing and publicity department does and the terms they use so that you can understand what your publisher uses to promote your book. Part 2 covers what you can do to promote your book just before it comes out. Michelle will be guest blogging a few more times so check back to see what over useful stuff she has to say.

There has been a blogging frenzy at the moment on the topic of Borders (the bookstore) – in particular, their penchant for “skipping” titles. "Skipping" means that a bookstore does not order in a particular title; they "skip" it. Gregory Frost talks about having his new book Lord Tophet “skipped” by Borders on the Wild River Review, despite it being “the lead title from Random House’s fantasy/science fiction imprint, Del Rey Books [and] the sequel to Shadowbridge, a novel that Borders did carry”. Go read it here (cause it’s quite long). While he is aware that Borders is a business and that it can’t stock every title ever published, he thinks the solution to Border-skipping is to skip Borders and head over to your local independent bookstore.
Tobias Buckell also had his book “skipped” but he doesn’t seem as peeved as Gregory. He explains how a Borders store works: “Borders central chooses what books to roll out across the entire chain…Borders stores for the most part aren’t allowed to respond to in-house movement, and are not very independent. When I go around and sign stock (copies of any book stores happen to have on hand) and talk to managers, individual Borders are not able to change their orders.”
So while having Borders skip your book isn’t ideal, he understands it is a company decision. Also, they seem to have been losing money lately and selling the stores, now that could be a glimpse at the industry as a whole or it could be s sign of mismanagement. Other people’s comments on this have been that Borders does stock their books, while Barnes and Noble (another American chain) doesn’t so when it comes right down to it, it is every bookshops right to choose which book they want to sell.
From my point of view, the books that Borders sells aren’t necessarily the ones that I want to read, however you might love the Borders range.
This is just a catch-22 though isn’t it? While a bookstore can never predict how well a book will go, if your book is marketed well and extremely popular bookstores like Borders will want to stock it. But if your book isn’t in Borders, it might not become extremely popular. But that’s publishing for you. You all knew that when you got started didn’t you? If you want a really fantastic post on it all visit Andrew Wheeler’s blog, antickmusings.

TV slots are a great chance to shove your book under the noses of people who don’t read reviews (probably because there aren’t that many published any more). Jaclyn Levin (Senior Publishing Producer for NBC News) answered some questions from 26th Story about how to get your book noticed by a TV producer. Check it out here.

That is the question that Kaolin Fire (owner and editor of GUD magazine) tried to answer over at *Headdesk*’s blog. He talked about novelists and the short fiction market, especially the big question. Should a novelist get their start in short story fiction before attempting a novel?

I think short stories can really showcase a writer’s talent (if they have any). But not everyone is cut out to be a short story writer. Don’t write them if you don’t love them. There are plenty of bad short stories out there and I don’t want to have to wade through them to get to the good stuff (I’m lazy like that). That being said, when you’re just starting out, competitions are a great option for writers and they are mostly in the short story format. What do you think?