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.

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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.

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If you ask a reader walking into a bookstore if they were coming in looking for a ‘Random House’ or a ‘Tor’, I doubt a single one would say yes.

More and more, marketing is about branding.  As technology rapidly changes the playing field, a fundamental understanding of the big picture of the book business is being misunderstood:  I submit to you that publishers are not a brand; authors are. Ask readers why they are coming in, many will tell you they are looking for the next Nora Roberts, Dennis Lehane, Sue Grafton, etc.

Publishers understand that.  But they don’t quite understand what it means.  They have been the gatekeepers of the book world for so long because they controlled production and distribution of the product.

They don’t any more.  I have a trade paperback on my desk that just arrived from Lightning.  It’s one of my backlist books I just brought back into print (mostly in ebook format) and I produce it and distribute it myself.  I can’t do placement (not yet), but I can do marketing via the Internet.

Publishers (and even more so, agents) give a stamp of legitimacy to a book.  Any traditionally published book has gone through a vetting process, first by an agent (again, not a brand), and then by the publishing house.  That is one of the key factors that must be factored into the future of publishing.  This book on my desk has a ring of legitimacy because it has NY Times Bestselling Author above my name and excerpts from reviews from PW/Kirkus/Library journal in the cover copy.  It was vetted years ago by the old system.  What is the new system?

Despite the braying of the dinosaurs in the tar pits the business is changing.  Resistance is futile.  Publishers, authors and agents need to embrace the changes, not fight it.

We are all trying.  I see numerous conferences springing up to discuss the changes and what they mean.  I’m sure there are numerous late night meetings in NY at publishing houses and literary agencies to try to chart a course through these rapidly changing waters.  But let me ask something:  at how many of these meetings or conferences is there an author sitting at the table or on the panel, to give input from the creative producers of the product?

One of the solutions to the current problems is to value the author—the brand– in the process.  How many literary agencies and publishing houses have some type of formal training program for their authors?  How many have authors involved in the planning for the future?

Not a single one that I know of.  But, expecting a newly signed author to know what they are doing would be like my expecting a civilian to become a functioning part of my elite Special Forces A-Team because they played paintball four weekends last year.  The expectation is that authors will learn how to be part of the business by osmosis—go to some writers’ conferences and sit in on some workshops.  Network with other authors.  The current marketplace has little time or mercy for such an inefficient system.

When I try to explain my one-day Who Dares Wins: Warrior Writer program, which teaches writers how to be successful authors, to agents and editors I get at best a blank stare, if not outright resistance.  One editor told me they don’t hire authors, they contract for manuscripts.  True.  But the manuscript doesn’t get the 1099.  More importantly, a trend is to put more and more of the marketing burden on the author.  The author has to have a platform, a plan, a social media presence, etc etc.  If authors have to do the jobs of the publicity departments, then what do they need a publisher for?  I’ve already pointed out that two key components in the publishing flow are slipping out of traditional publishing hands: production and distribution.  If I have to do the marketing myself, then what exactly is the publisher doing for me?  Legitimizing the work and placement (although if you are not a top tier author, placement equals simple physical distribution, particularly in brick and mortar stores, which is losing its value as ebooks grab more and more of the market share).

The true indicator of change will be when the first big brand name fiction writer bypasses traditional publishing—that is when the Perfect Storm will have arrived.  A few non-fiction writers have already done this (Stephen Covey’s deal with Kindle comes to mind).

Are there solutions to the current perfect storm in publishing? Yes and I ask for your input here.  And I will be blogging my thoughts about it in the current weeks using my Who Dares Wins strategy.  We will cover everything from authors, to agents, to editors, to publishing houses, to distribution, to the bookstore and the reader.  Let’s build a winning A-Team of authors, agents and publishers and, most importantly, readers.

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First, let me say I have a hardcover book (co-written with Jennifer Cruise) coming out from St Martins (MacMillan) on 16 March:  WILD RIDE.  Am I worried?  That’s three weeks away, light years in the electronic world.  Unfortunately, three weeks is nano-seconds in the publishing world.

Also, let me disclose that in the past month I have released six backlist titles directly onto Amazon Kindle, Smashword and other publishing platforms with another fourteen backlist and some original works planned in the next several months.  In fact, I have, in essence, become a publisher as well as an author.

I’ve been in the publishing world for 20 years.  When I teach, I always say the one adjective to describe publishing is slow.  The one to describe publishers is technophobic.  Three years from idea to bookstore.  1 year to write the book.  1 year to sell it.  1 year in production.  Except I just put six books on the market in one month.  Hmm.  Well, they did take several months to write.  The only publisher I’ve experienced who ever used Track Changes and electronic manuscript was F&W (Writers Digest).  Way back in 2002 with my Novel Writers Toolkit.  My head exploded when I saw it, because I had no idea what they had done to my manuscript.  Every NY Publisher I’ve worked with (and there are many) still use a single, paper copy of the mss, with a rubber band, pencil marks and stick-ums.  Think they’re embracing the changing technology?

What authors can’t do is think they’re on the sidelines looking at the radar screens as all these storms converge.  Or worse, that we’re in the eye of the hurricane.  This is a tremendous time of change in publishing.  I know Robert Gottleib of Trident, a very smart man on publishing, pooh-poohed the whole eBook thing recently at Digital Book World (I didn’t really see any quotes from AUTHORS on all these panels, which is curious), asking why everyone was worried about something that takes up roughly 3% of the market for books.  I think we’ve got the first answer to that.  Because this fight doesn’t just affect eBooks from MacMillan, but all books from MacMillan on Amazon.  Within a week, Gottleib also was quoted in PW saying he was considering negotiating e-rights separately in the future.  So he saw change fast and embraced it.

Also, change is coming exponentially, not linearly.  eBook sales are expected to double in percentage every year and I think that’s a low estimate as everyone is focusing too much on the platform (iPad, Kindle, flat rock, whatever) and not on CONTENT.  You can read an eBook on your laptop, your desktop, your cell phone, hell just about electronic device, except your toaster.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Authors produce content.

Readers consume content.

Everyone else is in the way to an extent.  Yes, we need agents and publishers, but their roles are changing.  As we said in the Infantry:  Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.

In all the conversation about who gets what percentage no one seems to be falling on their sword to make sure AUTHORS get more money.

I look at change as opportunity.  There are many things I don’t control as an author.  I don’t control what Amazon does (except choose not to buy there as a reader).  I don’t control what MacMillan does (except choose not to get published there as a writer).  The power to say no is truly one that authors have, but not very profitable.

What I do have is the power to do is study the changes, sit down with others and war game and try to figure out where things are going.  I see tremendous opportunities coming for authors.  Who can produce good content (which means less than 1% of everyone with a manuscript sitting on their computer in their pizza box lined basement while mother pounds on the door upstairs).

So.  Authors.  Write like the wind, but a good wind.  And don’t expect anyone else to take care of you.  Lead.

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1. Do you believe that good fiction writers can also develop as good non-fiction writers?

First, the questions is:  what type of non-fiction?  Certainly good fiction writers should be able to write good narrative non-fiction, since the structure and elements are the same.  If we’re talking about self-help or other types of non-fiction, the transition is a bit more difficult.  You lose the freedom of fiction in that case– just the facts, to quote a famous TV detective.  Such non-fiction also has to designed differently than traditional narrative structure (inciting incident, escalating conflict, crisis, climax, resolution for fiction).  In non-fiction, your goal is to inform, educate and motivate.  In fiction, your goal is primarily to entertain.  Inform is secondary.

2. As someone who has had success in both genres, which do you find easier to do? Which do you prefer?

Actually, I like both, which is why I am now writing historical fiction, which is a hybrid of fiction and non-fiction.  I’m weaving fictional characters into a historical setting.  My history has to be correct as far as dates, events, etc, but the main storyline revolves around characters I’ve made up.

I’ve found that non-fiction is harder to organize, but easier to write since we are usually dealing with subject matter we are familiar with.  Fiction is harder to write, but easier to organize.

3. What are your top “Warrior tips” for non-fiction writers?

A lot of non-fiction writers are people who aren’t naturally writers.  They’re writing non-fiction to support some other aspect of their life:  speaking, consulting, teaching.  I taught writing non-fiction last year at the National Speakers Association’s conference in San Francisco.  What really struck me was the difference between the personality types of speakers and those of writers.  In fact, I would go so far as to point out that one of the 16 character types of the Myers-Briggs (INFJ) is author while the exact opposite (ESTP) is promoter.  So promoting is a weak spot for fiction writers and writing is a weak spot for promoter/speakers.

There is a large difference between oral and written communication.

There are ways around these problems.  In Warrior Writer I teach people how to ‘lean’ into their fears.  Practice being your opposite Myers-Briggs character type.  Under Force Six COURAGE I teach that the more you venture out of your comfort zone by going into your courage zone, the larger your comfort zone becomes.
I also teach in Force Seven COMMUNICATE the differences between oral and written communications.
But the real key in writing non-fiction is under Force One:  WHAT:  know exactly what your goal for the book is, write it down in one sentence, post it in your office, and every time you begin to work on the book, look at the overall, strategic goal and make sure everything you are writing is supporting that goal.

4. Other insights about achieving success as a non fiction writer.

Consider the reader.  What do you want the reader to get out of the book?  If you’re writing true crime, are you trying to get people to understand the mind of people who commit certain crimes?  Or are you trying to get people to empathize with victims of horrific crimes?  Two very different books could be written about the same crime.

Less is better.  This was a particularly hard lesson for me.  My initial version of Who Dares Wins:  The Green Beret Way to Conquer Fear & Succeed was 116,000 words.  I had to winnow it down to 46,000 words for the version that was just published by Simon & Schuster.  In fact, someone came up to me at the Surrey Conference and told me he had read the earlier version and while he got a lot out of it, he also felt a but overwhelmed.  Keep non-fiction as short as possible and to the point.

Organize non-fiction into a logical flow that the reader can follow and use key buzzwords they can come back to.  Again, for WDW I had to distill it down to 9 Forces inside the three area words of the title:
WHO:  Character, Change, Courge
DARES:  Communicate, Command, Complete
WINS:  What, Why, Where

Notice I even started each Force in each area with the same letter.  Simple is better.

For non-fiction writers, there are plenty of editors out there who can help you.  You don’t have to do it alone.

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