GENREALITY

The uproar over Harlequin’s new vanity press line (similar to Thomas Nelson’s) and the reaction of RWA, SFWA, MWA and others to it has caused a lot of authors to wake up.  I’ve been in this business for 20 years and the one thing I have always seen is a subtle lack of respect for authors on the part of many publishers, agents and editors.  I read Michael Hyatt’s blog where he mentions ‘authors ripping off publishers’ because their books don’t earn out.  I constantly see agents tweet or blog about how hard it is to wade through the un-professional queries they receive.  I guess that’s called work.  Like writing on spec is work.

I’m not saying they are bad people or are consciously doing this, but there is a pervasive attitude that authors are replaceable cogs in the publishing machine.  And since most writers are so desperate to get published, there are many cogs standing in line.

I would submit the following to you:  Editors and agents usually start off as interns in the publishing business.  Or at the very least, at an entry level job.  They learn about the business and work their way up.  They are not thrust suddenly into selling or buying a book the first day on the job.

Authors are thrust into the business the first day on the job.  And no one teaches them a thing.  I’d like to ask this:  Is there any agent or editor who has a formal training program in place for new authors?  Where they educate the author on how the business works?

“We don’t have time” every agent and editor I mention this to, replies.  But you do have time to have a 90% failure rate on first novels?  I suggest considering making the time or outsourcing the training.  Because the current economy is not going to allow such a business paradigm to survive.

As it is now we have the “osmosis” training model for authors.  Go to conferences.  Join writers groups.  Talk to other authors.  All a hit-miss proposition.  The biggest problem is a new author doesn’t even know the right questions to ask.

I started my Warrior Writer program by using the business template that the elite Special Forces uses to train the best soldiers in the world and applying it to being an author.  I use 20 years and 40 books published and 20 years as a Special Forces A-Team leader, operations officer and instructor at the JFK Special Warfare Center & School, to develop a nine-step program that focuses on writers developing a career plan; examine their personality and how it affects their writing and their interaction with the publishing world; conquering fear; effective marketing; taking command of their own fate; and so on.

I think self-publishing (NOT vanity like HQ and Thomas Nelson are offering) is a viable option for some non-fiction authors who have a platform and a unique hook.  Bottom line for fiction authors:  forget about it.  Yes, you can cite one or two examples of unique success, but 99.9% of self-published fiction is a waste of time and money.

A lot of people are going to waste a lot of money at HQ and Thomas Nelson using their vanity press arm.  And HQ and Thomas Nelson are going to make a lot of money off these wanna-be writers—not readers.  Makes you wonder what kind of business template that is.

To all you wanna-be authors.  Caveat Emptor.

And yes, I have a traditionally published title coming out next week from St. Martins:  Wild Ride, co-written with Jennifer Crusie.  But I also have my first, original title, coming out from Who Dares Wins Publishing:  Chasing The Ghost that I’m very proud of.  Along with, at long last, the Warrior Writer book.

Now don’t start sending me queries.  I’m starting my own publishing company for my backlist and for my pending non-fiction.  I have 20 titles I own the rights to.  To try to get a ‘traditional’ publisher to re-release them is fruitless.  The feeling is ‘they had their chance’.  When, in reality, they didn’t have ‘their chance’ because the publishers threw them, along with thousands of other titles against the wall hoping one would stick.  With over one million books sold at Random House, I can’t get an editor to respond to an email.  The total marketing budget at Random House for those books was ‘round up the usual suspects’ which means tossing some galleys out there and that’s it.  Editors are overwhelmed and publishers are slow to adjust to new technologies.

Which makes this article by Jonathan Galassi kind of ludicrous in a way.

It goes to the attitude that publishers are the key players in the game and writers should be damn glad they deign to even publish you.  Kind of like that scene in The Player where they say, let’s get rid of the writers.

I will still seek to get traditionally published with my WIP.  The printed book is not dead.  But if you look at the facts, it’s time things start to change.  Here are new ereaders from the latest trade show:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/08/ces.ereader/index.html?iref=allsearch

Amazon sold more ebooks than printed books over the holidays.

People who use ereaders, buy three times as many books as those who buy printed.

So, my publishing company, Who Dares Wins, is proud to release Black Ops: The Gate on Kindle, via pdf from my web site, and in trade paperback from my web site.  It will soon be available from Lightning and as trade paperback on Amazon and other venues.

I think this is an exciting time to be an author with more opportunities than ever before.