Writers need to keep on their toes ...

Here in Australia the REDgroup Retail, owners of Angus and Robertson and Borders Australia has filed for bankruptcy. We live in interesting times.

I belong to Science Fiction Writers of America and the latest issue has an article on digital books and publishing. (He basically said you were crazy if you didn't make your out of print back-list work for you). The author makes a good point about the writer as a business person. If you don't keep up, you'll be left behind.

As a writer you are madly juggling work, family and writing and you are expected to promote your books as well. Even if you have an agent, you need to be watching your genre to see who is publishing what and what the trends are. You can track your sales on Amazon, that's new. But I only found out that copies of book 3 of my first trilogy are selling for anything up to $200 from a reader who didn't want to pay this much.

I really should teach myself to do podcasts. I know I should, but with work and renovating and writing I just don't have the mental space for it right now. With so much to keep track of it's a wonder writers get any writing done.

Now, if you have managed to finish writing your book and you're looking for somewhere to send it, consider sending it to Angry Robot. They're opening their doors to submission in March. They say:

'All our books are “genre” fiction in one way or another — specifically fantasy, science fiction, horror, and that new catch-all urban or modern fantasy. Those are quite wide-ranging in themselves; we’re looking for all types of sub-genre, so for example, hard SF, space opera, cyberpunk, military SF, alternate future history, future crime, time travel, and more. We have no problem if your book mashes together two or more of these genres, but they must have that genre foundation – no thrillers with the merest touch of SF, for example.

Our books will be published in all English-language territories — notably the UK, US and Australia — so we’ll be buying rights to cover all those. If you are only offering rights in one territory, we will not be able to deal with you. We will be able to offer e-book and audio versions as standard too, plus limited edition and multiple physical formats where appropriate. We are not contracting any work-for-hire titles; we offer advances and royalties.

Beyond all of this, what we’re really looking for in your writing is this:
• A “voice”, that comes from…
• Confident writing
• Pacy writing
• Characters that live, have real relationships and emotions, even in extreme situations
• A sense of vision, a rounded universe that lives and breathes
• Clever construction, good plotting, a couple of surprises even for us jaded old read-it-alls
• Heightened experience – an intensity, extremity or just a way of treating plot or situation in a way we’ve not come across before. “Goes up to 11″, if you know what that means.

Do all those, and it will be almost irrelevant that your story is one or other sub-set of SF, fantasy or horror!'

There's a list of FAQs and some tips on presentation. Best of luck.

Tell me, are you also scrambling to keep your head above water, or is it just me?

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Before I get into the gist of my post today, I want to encourage everyone to who loves adventure to check out Dave's post yesterday. His novella, Without a Trace, is one of those wonderful stories you loved as a kid and still love now that you're grown. It is also a story all ages can read and enjoy. So don't be turned off by the middle school/early YA tag on it. Okay, end of fan girl squee now.

For Whom the Bell Tolls...It tolls for Borders and, quite possible, a number of publishers as well if they are foolish enough to buy into Borders' latest attempt to save itself.

Much of the news from the publishing world this week has centered around Borders Books and its attempts -- very late attempts -- to save itself from bankruptcy. There have been firings, the announcement that it is closing one of its distribution centers and talks with publishers all so it can get refinancing on its outstanding debt. Is it a case of too little too late? In my opinion, yes. Worse, if the publishers buy into Borders' "solution", I won't be surprised at all to see not only Borders but some of those publishers shutter their doors in the next year or two.

Here's a quick time line of what's been happening with regard to Borders since the first of the year. It started with a new round of firings or resignations in the executive suite. Gone are Thomas Carney, longtime legal counsel, Scott Laverty, the chief information officer, Tony Grant, v-p of real estate, Bill Dandy, senior v-p, marketing, and Larry Norton, senior v-p for business development and publisher relations.

Then came the news that Borders wanted publishers to push back the date for payment of outstanding bills -- ie, Borders wanted to keep books already shipped to them by the publishers but not pay for them. As talks between Borders and the publishers commenced, we learned Borders wanted the publishers to convert this debt into "interest bearing loans". This brought Borders stock tumbling to a low of 84 cents a share. From the same article: "Several publishers said Borders owed them millions of dollars in payments, up to tens of millions each for the larger publishers. Publishers said they had been told by Borders executives that more than two dozen vendors were owed money."

Compounding the bad news is this report of the announced closure of one of Borders distribution centers. This center, located in Tennessee, had already seen layoffs of 200 employees. Now, another 300+ will lose their jobs. This is a cost-cutting move aimed at streamlining their distribution chain. Again, too little too late, in my opinion. This is something they should have realized before opening the center a couple of years ago.

Indicative of the problems facing Borders the announcement that Diamond Book Distributors has suspended shipments to them. DBD is a major source for graphic novels. From ComicsBeat.com: "They have informed their clients that since Borders has suspended payments to them, DBD is suspending product shipments and has put the Borders account on hold." Now, you might not think this is major news, but think about it. Titles included in the DBD stable are Streetfighter, Gantz, Shrek, Transformers, G.I. Joe. Darkhorse Comics uses them as a distributor. We're talking comics and manga. This is an entire demographic Borders has lost, for a short time at least, because of their halting of payments.

The latest news is that Borders has given publishers until Feb. 1st to accept or reject their latest proposal. According to the article, Borders is asking publishers to take on somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of the company's "reorganized" debt.

All I can say to this is, WTF? I'm sorry, publishers are in trouble. They are barely keeping their heads afloat as is. Now Borders wants them to take on more debt. Where is the money going to come from? Ask most writers and you'll find that advances are down -- and that's when they are able to find a traditional publisher for their books. Some are reporting late and/or incomplete royalty payments. There is a growing discontent linked to the belief royalty accountings are anything but accurate. Book prices continue to go up and sales of hard copy books continue to stagnate or decrease. What Borders is asking these publishers to do is tantamount to suicide for some. "Take on my debt, continue to supply me with books but don't charge me for them, and I get to stay open. Oh, wait, you'll have to close your doors? Sorry, can't help you there. But we'll send flowers to your corporate funeral."

As much as I hate to see any business close its doors -- not so much for the business itself as for the employees -- perhaps it is time to let Borders take its lumps and either close or downsize to a point where it can stay afloat. But it has to be done in a way that doesn't put the rest of the industry in jeopardy as well. I don't have all the answers...not even a few of them. But I do know I don't want to see the major -- or minor, for that matter -- publishers chain themselves to a sinking ship.

For an excellent overview of what went wrong with Borders, check out this article by Peter Osnos.

(cross-posted to The Naked Truth)

Publishing in Slippers

Greetings from New Zealand to the Naked Readers.

To write is to change, and to effect change — as long as we’re following some necessity of our own in what we write. For me, the process has been one of serious at-home introversion (entering the imagination and spending long days alone writing it out) followed, then accompanied, by relentlessly evolving extroversion (being published; speaking about the process to ten, fifty, or 400 people; travelling; living with international writers; collaborating; working for a publisher . . .)

Then late last year, in keeping with the global financial scene and the state of crisis in the established publishing industry, I lost my two-day-a-week job and was forced to find another way to fund myself — one more in keeping with this new(ish) webbed-up world we inhabit — and to make another stretch out into the community. Besides that, my latest novel, born into the dark night of the abovementioned crisis, seemed to be drifting into obscurity.

I knew what I’d do. I’d woken one night 18 months earlier and the concept was slid deftly into my keeping, if you will. Now it was time to start seriously incubating it. Digital publishing is not a wildly pioneering idea. It’s been around for a while, piecemeal, but I seemed to be alone here in NZ, with the plan to do what conventional publishers always wanted to do (but got sidetracked from by financial necessity): publish work I love. Beautifully written books whose content is dynamic, truth-telling, and heartening. Work that lights me up no matter how many times I work through it with the author, assessing, discussing structure, close editing, proof-reading, having a cover designed, signaling its glories . . .

Rosa Mira Books goes live later this month. The first novel, The Glass Harmonica: A Sensualist’s Tale, by Utah author Dorothee Kocks, will be out in November, followed by an anthology of Slightly Peculiar Love Stories, by New Zealand and international writers.

What an age we live in, where a woman can start a publishing business at her kitchen table. She can roam about the world in her bedroom slippers, finding colleagues and allies and answers to her myriad questions. She can find designers and marketers, writers and readers, a deeply satisfying job, and sometimes even joy.

I came upon the Naked Reader by the usual ‘you need to check out this’ from a friend. It’s great to find others running parallel along the writing-publishing track, and I’ve admired the energy and generosity of the writers on the Mad Genius Club blog, which seems to be mysteriously linked with this one.

I wish us all the best, we who are having so much fun doing exactly what we want and are best fitted for.

www.penelopetodd.co.nz
www.rosamirabooks.blogspot.com

(Edit: I've fixed the links - I'm not sure why they went wrong)