Michael A. Stackpole's Blog, page 8

January 24, 2012

Capitalism 101

Writers write for a lot of different reasons:

For fun.

For feedback.

To hone their skills.

To get noticed.

To get famous.

To get rich.

To change the world.

To make a living.

I'm sure there are many more reasons for writing. Many writers write for more than one of the the above—all the good ones do. Locking in on just one reason can blind a writer to other opportunities. For example, someone writing to get noticed, to get feedback and for fun, might confine themselves to writing fanfic, when their skills, applied elsewhere, might allow them to make a living, or at least a little money. Someone focusing on getting rich might travel from hot topic to hot topic, never devoting enough time to honing his skills so that he gets good enough to keep the readers he initially attracts. And some writers work very hard building an audience because they want to be famous and can't live in a vacuum without notice or feedback, but they never reach their true potential as writers because they've trained themselves to be marketers.

One of the reasons I write is to make a living. I've been making a living as a freelancer, writing mostly, doing game design jobs or teaching workshops here and there, since 1987. My involvement in the gaming industry meant that, in the early 1990s, as Magic: The Gathering came into the industry and started to make a lot of people a lot of money, I was offered a monthly column in Comics and Games Retailer magazine. My focus was on helping stores figure out how to profit in a time when the industry was awash in money, when new stores were popping up, and when pronouncements from Wizards of the Coast were taken as revelations from on high. If WOTC said it, folks believed it, and then got upset when things didn't work out the way WOTC predicted or they interpreted the predictions.

That period of time led me to formulate my definition of Capitalism: A state in which businesses act in their own enlightened* self-interest. (*Enlightenment is subject to interpretation, revision and modification, often without notice, and more often in ignorance.)

I hardly need to point to Wizards of the Coast and things they did ages ago when companies like RIM or Netflix have so recently done things which make my case for me. In some office inside each of those companies, a bunch of intelligent individuals pouring over streams of data, talked themselves into believing that doing one thing or another was sheer brilliance. Then when consumers revolted and sales plummeted, they took that data into account, modified their plan, and went forward again. Sometimes companies succeed when they do that, other times, they become that painful investment write-off on your taxes.

Our job, as consumers or content providers, is to look at what ebook companies are doing and decide how we can make money in this environment. Companies like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple are the top predators in this market. Realistically there's not a damned thing I can do to influence how they are going to operate. Face it, the plans we see them executing now have been in the works for months and have a momentum all their own. To oppose them is to be crushed or, worse yet, completely ignored.

So, we let the top predators wage their wars. I'm content with being a coyote scavenging around the edges. What are scraps to them are huge hunks of meat to me. Their fights attract a lot of attention, and I can use that attention to my advantage. As noted above, being ignored is the worst thing than can happen, so cultivating visibility is very useful.

This brings me to Apple's iBooks Author End User Licensing Agreement. I downloaded the iBooks Author software the day it became available. I've played with its some and in a future post I'll mention a number of the independent author projects I think it's perfect suited for. The EULA has raised flags and concerns—there are plenty of folks who have weighed in on whether or not it's legal, and of lot of folks think it's a huge rights grab. Many people think it was stupid of Apple to offer such software with so hideous a EULA, and that it will be a public relations nightmare when the inevitable consumer backlash occurs.

It should surprise no one that I've liked Apple products for a long time, and have been using them since 1987 on a consistent basis. What follows is not a fanboy commentary. It's a writer's commentary, and a businessman's commentary. When I opened the software, when I read the EULA and all the commentary on it, I asked myself the same question that Apple and all corporations ask themselves:

What's in this for me?

I can only speculate on why Apple wrote the EULA they did, but given the context of the event at which the software was released, I'm going to guess at their thinking. They wanted to position the iPad as the go-to device for education. The software allows teachers and home schoolers to prepare lesson plans which they can share with students or each other for free, without any interference from Apple. If anyone wants to profit from their product, Apple wants a cut. Fair cop there, I think. And Apple doesn't want to empower any other tablet or readers to use the textbooks their software generates because that would dilute their hold on the market. Again, not hard to understand.

I don't think any of that is unreasonable on their part. In fact, the whole idea of allowing for free distribution of texts created by their software puts a bit of an altruistic polish on their claims that they're in it to educate kids. Let's face it, anyone who prepares a text can easily have a donate button on their website to encourage folks to reward them for their efforts, and the EULA does not address that donation model. Surely Apple had to consider as a possibility and ignored it.

But I go back to the core question: What's in it for me? Why would I want to use the software if the EULA is so hideous? What benefit do I derive from creating a product that will only look good on an iPad? Is it worth my time and effort to play with the software when, at the most alarmist reading, the EULA suggests that Apple owns everything I've created using it?

Let me hit that last question first, because there's a fairly simple answer to it: if you're worried that Apple will own everything, don't use iBooks Author as your word processor. Do the work in something else and import the text. That's the solution to that little problem, and it's a pretty simple one.

So, what is in iBooks Author for me? In a word: access.

Follow my reasoning. Apple has just made a splash with a push that identifies their machine as the educational machine. I write work that appeals to many demographic groups, but one of them is that coveted Middle School through College group. Having a story of mine included in a class as part of the curriculum gives me and my work an imprimatur of legitimacy. That's less important, of course, than the fact that it will get my words in front of students—students whom, I hope, will look for more of my work to read on their iPads.

I was trained as a teacher—I did a full semester of student teaching, in fact—and I recall film strips and movies being described as "lesson-plan in a can." Not only can an educational edition of a story or novel provide an overworked teacher with good material, but home schoolers are dying for this sort of material. Charter school teachers are looking for it, too. So are book-clubs and reading groups.

Aside from students who have their iPads issued to them in school, iPad owners/users fall into another coveted demographic: the qualified end-user. What that translates to for non-marketing folks is simple: they have a credit card and enough cash to afford an empty box into which they need to stuff material. Since I make that material which they stuff into their machines, getting access to them and getting noticed by them is a good thing for my business.

The above discussion does not mean that I've decided that I will produce material for distribution via iBooks Author software. I'll still wait to see if the dust settles on the EULA—I trust lawyers to thin-slice that agreement so I get a better understanding of the consequences of participating with it. If no one finds any more Mordorian clauses in the contract, I'll finish off an educational edition of a short story (complete with annotated texts, exercises and discussion points) and see how it goes. I'll have put 10 hours into the project at that point, and I'm willing to risk that time investment on something that could pay big dividends down the line.

If one of your goals for writing is to be able to make money, then you need to do Capitalism better than top predators. Our advantage is that we are more flexible, can move more quickly and can survive on income streams that the behemoths see as rounding errors. As long as you're willing to keep yourself enlightened, and act in your own self-interest (however you define it), you'll survive and even thrive.

_______________________

Writing blog posts cuts into my fiction writing time. If you're finding these posts useful, and haven't yet gotten yet snagged my latest novels, please consider purchasing a book. Nice thing about the new age of publishing is that you become a Patron of the Arts, letting writers know what you'd like to see more of simply by voting with a credit card. (Authors charge less when they sell direct, so you save, we make more, and that frees us to write more.)

My latest paper novel, Of Limited Loyalty, is out in paper. If you want it for the Kindle, just hit this link.

For those of you who haven't tried Perfectly Invisible yet, now is your chance. I've provided three sample chapters here on my website, or you can click on any of the online retailers below and download a free preview of the novel. You can get up to speed on Miracle Dunn and watch how the new story unfolds here as I blog about the writing. (The novel is 50,000 words long, or a five hour read for the average reader.)

For the Kindle edition, just hit this link.

To purchase it through iTunes for your iPad/iPhone/iPod, just hit this link.

To purchase it through Barnes & Noble for your Nook, please use this link.

View more on Michael A. Stackpole's website »

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Published on January 24, 2012 11:27

January 13, 2012

…In Book Form…

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HarperCollins has sued Open Road Integrated Media over Open Road's publication of an ebook version of Julie of the Wolves, a children's book HC acquired in 1972. The link above is to The Passive Voice blog, which is a great place for learning about publishing and contracts. I retweet their content often and am pleased when they link to some of my content. Passive Guy, the blog's owner, is a lawyer and far more qualified than I to offer legal opinions on this whole mess.

One aspect of the lawsuit seems to be centered around HC's contention that they bought the rights to publish Julie of the Wolves "in book form." The contract was signed in 1972. Being as how I like to think of myself as a futurist (the fancy term for science fiction writer) and that my college degree is in history, that particular phrase has me looking back to look forward. Would what Open Road brought out now have been viewed as "in book form" back then, in 1972?

Just by way of reference, back in 1972 I was a sophomore in High School. Computers were big boxy machines that spit out paper tape and punch cards, or recorded data on these huge reels of magnetic tape. The only privately owned computer I know of from that era was the old Raytheon computer that Rick Loomis had purchased in 1969 to run play by mail games. In 1973 I got introduced to the world of computers and computing by visiting a computer lab at the University of Vermont with high school buddies . We logged in as guests and played games, most of which were basic programs that reported results with little Ascii charts, maps or text readouts. I recall when the first Adventure game (aka Zork) started appearing. We got it on the UVM computer in modules, and it wasn't until 1979 when a friend purchased an Apple ][e that I got to finish the game I'd be playing in 1973.

The significance of that little trip down memory lane is this: in 1973 I rented computer space on the UVM mainframe. I rented 25K of memory, which cost me $1 a month. I think this is an important point because even the smallest of what we currently recognize as ebooks takes up at least 10 times that much memory. (Sure, a pure .txt file will be much smaller, maybe around that 25K, but this lawsuit isn't about .txt files.) A PDF of a book, which is probably the thing which resembles a print book most closely, is an absolute pig when it comes to memory. Few, if any people, back then had the vision for ebooks that we accept today.

In looking back to look forward, I suspect the only reason we recognize what we have as ebooks as being "in book form" is due to a pair of factors. First, we call them ebooks. We called them ebooks even when I was formatting them for Palm Pilots and reading them by having the text scroll freely up and down. One program I looked at even had a teleprompter feature, where the text would automatically scroll up at a set reading speed. What if we'd chosen to call them "e-scrolls" instead? They'd still convey the same information, and would have been right at home in many cultures. Heck, Homer might have recognized his work in that form, whereas an actual book might have seemed odd to him. (Yes, I know that many ancient books were formatted as a codex, but hang with the spirit of the thing here.)

Second, Amazon's Kindle, and every other reader, in trying to duplicate the "book experience," has geared software interfaces to make ebooks function closely and recognizably as paper books. Traditional publishers carry this on to a ridiculous degree: they hard code table of contents in the front of an ebook, ignoring the fact that every one comes with an automatic TOC built in. No reader is going to flip back to the hot linked TOC page by page when they just tap the screen and get what they want. And yet, the hot linked TOCs still appear. (THAT's why ebooks are so expensive, I'm sure. Not easy to do all that unnecessary linking.)

This does open up a larger discussion concerning when a story is a book or isn't a book. In some contracts, the word book appears to be synonymous with "novel." That would be a work of novel length, a concept in and of itself which is poorly defined. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) defines a novel as a work over 40,000 words in length—even though the standard works in that genre are two to three times that length. Category romances, on the other hand, tend to be much smaller, but are marketed as novels. And if we take novel to mean a work of 40,000 words or more, and book to mean novel, what then is a set of three, 35,000 word long serial novellas grouped together in a collection? Is that a book, or a novel, or an anthology, or just a bargain package for ebook readers?

It's oft been said that the law lags behind technology. It's true. Technology is the frontier, and the law is never a frontier phenomenon. Here technology may also be forcing a re-examination of definitions which appeared to have been settled long since. Let's remember that before we had printed books, we had stories of prodigious length. Let's not forget that in pioneering the publication of novels, W. H. Smith used to break them all into three parts because that facilitated their book rental business along British rail lines. Let's not forget that a novel may be presented in book form, but that not everything which appears in book form is a novel.

Let's be prepared for technology to force us to redefine everything. And, in doing so, exploding a lot of contracts and a lot of business practices which have never been seriously threatened before.

Above all remember that, as writers, our job is to be entertainers. It doesn't matter how we package what we do, or at what price we sell it, we must entertain. If that's not your purpose, if that's not your goal, you can call whatever you turn out anything you want to call it. Readers may nibble, but they won't devour. Challenge your audience, give them good stories, and you'll have a long career in this business—no matter what we end up deciding it should be called.

_______________________

My latest paper novel, Of Limited Loyalty, is out in paper. If you want it for the Kindle, just hit this link.

For the Kindle edition, just hit this link.

To purchase it through iTunes for your iPad/iPhone/iPod, just hit this link.

To purchase it through Barnes & Noble for your Nook, please use this link.

View more on Michael A. Stackpole's website »

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Published on January 13, 2012 08:08

December 18, 2011

Milestones

I apologize for having gone silent on the blog for a month or so. Things have been insane (as you will see below), but in a good way. There are times when creativity grabs you by the throat and won't let go. I'd complain, but since creativity is my bread and butter, you work hard when it comes easy, and harder when it doesn't. Most of the time you just hope you can keep up.

The big news is that Of Limited Loyalty came out from Night Shade Books. It's the sequel to At the Queen's Command. It picks up three years after the events in the first book and faces our heroes with a new set of challenges. It has another stunning cover by Ryan Pancoast. I can't wait to see what he does for An Ungrateful Rabble. If you want to buy an autographed copy of the book, you can get one from The Poisoned Pen Bookstore here in Scottsdale, AZ. Amazon also has copies immediately available, though they are not signed.

Perfectly Dead, the second of the Homeland Security Services novels, ran a bit longer than I intended, so I finished it on 5 December. I got down to the point where I expected it to end, but I didn't find that sequence of events to be emotionally satisfying. I added two more chapters to get the effect I wanted. It ended up around 62,000 words and in rewrites I expect I'll add another 3-5,000. I need to make sure all the things link up, and that the character arcs are consistent and smooth. Adding Bloodstone in did make the novel a lot more fun, but in the end I had to remind myself this was an HSS novel, not a Bloodstone novel. I suspect that's a distinction only I worry about, but there it is.

In addition to working on Perfectly Dead, I've been working on another movie script with Brian Pulido. Brian and I collaborated on the award-winning script Gone, and penned another script titled The Sickness. We learned a lot doing those, and Brian has learned a lot more about the business over the last several years since he wrote, directed and produced The Graves. (I actually have a speaking part in the movie (I'm Joseph in the credits), but you can only see the back of my head on screen. Just as well, Clare Grant is much easier on the eyes.) Brian and I get together twice a week to plan and write. We've just finished the treatment for a new film. In the new year we'll do the script. We're both very enthused about this particular project, and I'll let you know more as things develop.

Michael R. Mennenga and I have revamped Dragonpage Cover to Cover, our podcast about books, writing and digital publishing. We've shifted it over to concentrate on how writers can participate in the changing world of publishing. We're focusing on a couple of things. First, Michael will be rewriting his novel, Mistress of the Dragon. He'll be taking the same journey all writers do in editing and preparing a book for publication. I'll be guiding him through that process, as well as mentioning things I've been doing with my new novels. In many ways listening to the podcast will be like attending the writing seminars I give all over the place (alone or with Aaron Allston).

That's half of the podcast. The other half will continue to be news about the industry and interviews with authors who are exploring the world of digital publishing. Because things are so fluid out there, and because folks are trying all sorts of things to make a go of it, we want to pick the minds of the pioneers. And, as always, we'll be taking listener feedback and answering your questions about why authors do things, or how you might want to proceed with your work. I'll also be tying my newsletter, The Secrets, into this process—more on that development in the new year.

I hit a monster milestone this year: early in December I broke 400,000 words written. This does not include blogs or correspondence. It's comprised of stories, novels, articles and other projects which will earn income. This is the most I have ever written in a calendar year, including the early days when I was grinding out BattleTech novels or fifteen years ago when I did those first four X-wing novels in sixteen months. And this is a monster increase over my output over the last couple years—probably more than than any two of the last four combined.

Why the change?

The digital revolution, and the possibilities it has opened up, have made writing fun again. K. W. Jeter has noted that authors have been carrying around the burden of traditional publishing's overhead and antiquated publishing practices for years. That burden is bone-crushing, since it demands that the author turn out bestselling books without any market direction or any publisher support. It's like asking a baseball player to do nothing but hit home runs and pack the stands, all without scouting reports or promotion. It's insane.

Being able to turn out books like Perfectly Invisible or In Hero Years… I'm Dead is incredibly liberating. With those books I don't have the weight on my shoulders. In Hero Years… I'm Dead was a book that New York didn't want because there wasn't a place for it in bookstores—they didn't have a shelf marked "Non-licensed Superhero Noir Fiction." That's a fair cop, but that didn't mean readers wouldn't like it. It's gotten great reviews and is a ton of fun—which is what books are supposed to be.

The Homeland Security Services novels are in a similar position. They're in an alternate world, so that would make them science fiction, but they're CSI-style, police procedural crime stories. They don't fit anywhere. Well, kiwi-fruit didn't fit in stores way back when (and I can recall when they first tried to market it in the US) because the produce aisle didn't have a place for hairy, soft, green-pulpy fruit. That didn't mean it wouldn't find an audience, it would just take time. Perfectly Invisible is out there, Perfectly Dead will follow soon, and I've already got the outline for the third, Perfectly Economical, figured out. These are books I want to do because I'm enjoying the characters and the setting. I think others will, too.

The cool thing is that choosing to work on and publish them means I get to control what's going on in my career. If I don't pay attention to the numbers, if I don't watch trends, if I don't do all the things that business folks do; and things don't work out, that's on me. If I bring Perfectly Dead out in March and see seriously sluggish sales, I might push off writing the third book for a couple of months and try something else. If sales do well on it, and I watch sales on the first one pick back up, then I might push writing Perfectly Economical up a bit. Inside three months to a year, I'll have data that traditional publishing would have taken years to collect and digest, and I'll be able to react to it more quickly.

I don't know how all this turns out. Could be I'll make the wrong decisions and things will be a disaster. But what does disaster mean in this case? Instead of selling 5,000 copies in a year, I sell 500? Since I can't get the time back I spent writing the book, and since even 500 a year will generate $1000 or so, where am I losing? Who wouldn't be happy to have a part-time job that they don't have to show up for, that will give them $1000 a year?

Back to my point, however: the sense of liberation has really sparked me and my creativity. Two weeks ago I came up with a killer idea for a novel series. I've been jotting notes like a madman. It is my hope that by the middle of January the first book will be done. And after that I have other projects about which I am equally enthused. I think hitting 400,000 words in 2012 is not going to be a problem, and I might do even more. Adding 3-4 more 500 a year sellers to the stable can't hurt. I have fun, readers have fun, it's all good.

This joy, this enthusiasm, having it hurt when I can't sit down to write, that's the way it was over thirty years ago when I used to hammer stories out on an old typewriter. It was what made me write a novel in longhand back when I was in high school. This is what sparks the light in the eyes of students who come to my classes, and fuels the secret smile writers have when alone and an idea strikes them.

It's been gone for a bit. I am so thankful it's back.

_______________________

My latest paper novel, Of Limited Loyalty, is out in paper. (I'll let you know when it's ready for your Kindle.)

For the Kindle edition, just hit this link.

To purchase it through iTunes for your iPad/iPhone/iPod, just hit this link.

To purchase it through Barnes & Noble for your Nook, please use this link.

View more on Michael A. Stackpole's website »

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Published on December 18, 2011 09:35

November 17, 2011

Free Fiction X 2

For anyone following me on Twitter (@mikestackpole) or on Facebook, the following is old news, but I do have some new details. Night Shade Books has made a deal with Amazon to give away copies of At the Queen's Command free. This offer, I've been told, runs at least until my birthday (11/27) and is good in the United States and Canada. Please, feel free to snag a copy to read on your smart phones, computers, Kindles or any other device which has a Kindle app—which is pretty much anything with a chip as nearly as I can tell.

Fingers are crossed that Night Shade will be able to work out a similar deal with other ebook retailers (Nook, Kobo and Apple) to make the book available through them.

Please let everyone you know about this deal. Retweet as much as you want. I promise, the supply will not run out.

But that's not all:

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a second story about Jack Card, Boy Skeptic. The first story, The Adventure of the Ghost Watch, is still available here on my website, for free. The Jack Card stories marry two loves of mine: Skepticism/critical thinking and the old Encyclopedia Brown stories. I ate those stories up when I was a kid. Two years ago, when I got the idea for the Jack Card stories, I snagged a collection of the Encyclopedia Brown stories and still found them intriguing. The author, Donald J. Sobol, manages to write these elegantly succinct mystery stories in which the reader is challenged to find the solution to each case. The solutions are printed in the back of the books, and sharp-eyed readers can pick out the details upon which each solution hinges.

The Jack Card stories are a bit different. First, they're all organized around some paranormal phenomena. The first story involves a ghost. The second one, which you can read below, involves a dowser. Second, they run a bit longer than the Encyclopedia Brown stories because the mysteries need a bit more set up and, frankly, I'm not as good as Mr. Sobol at writing short. Even so, at roughly 3,000 words each, the Jack Card stories are some of the shortest stories I've even done. Third, and this is just a stylistic difference necessitated by the changes in the reading audience since Encyclopedia Brown first showed up in 1963, I add more in the way of characterization than Mr. Sobol does. Down through the years, as mysteries shifted into crime fiction, the books got bigger and characterization is a huge part of that. The focus moved from being solely on the puzzle to be solved, to a split between that and the development of characters. I love playing with characters, so this shift suits me just fine.

This second story, The Crossed-wires Adventure, is largely based on the work of James Randi and his educational foundation (JREF) in exposing dowsers and water-witches. Over coffee at DragonCon in 2010 Randi was kind enough to explain some details to me which figure into the tale that follows. It's my hope that this story can, in some small way, encourage critical thinking and/or be an easy way for folks to learn the truth about certain paranormal phenomena. (And by paranormal I mean evanescent and by phenomena I mean persiflage.)

Without further ado, The Crossed-wires Adventure.

The Crossed-wires Adventure

©2011 Michael A. Stackpole

Jack Card, safely ensconced in his room cataloguing the latest addition to his coin collection, heard Aunt Flora well before he saw her. His mom had greeted the old woman at the front door, which was a straight shot down the stairs from Jack's room. Though he couldn't make out any of the words spoken, Aunt Flora's high-pitched tone meant only one thing: adventure was afoot.

"Jack, Aunt Flora is here to see you." His mom's voice had a note of urgency. Jack hurried getting his sneakers on. "She needs your help."

He took the stairs two at a time, pausing near the bottom. "Hi, Aunt Flora."

"There you are, Master John." The elderly woman—who was really his Great Grand-aunt—cupped his face in her boney hands. "Mina, dear, you will let me borrow him? Atrocious manners, short notice and all, I do apologize, dear, but I need your bright boy."

"Is your homework done, Jack?"

"Finished an hour ago."

Jack's mother nodded, then gave him the look. Aunt Flora had taken a small fortune left to her by her father and turned it into a large fortune through shrewd investments. Because she was known as the richest person in North Greenvale, lots of people came to her with investment ideas. As his mother had done when she was his age, Jack was given the duty of protecting Aunt Flora against swindlers.

"Of course, Aunt Flora. Jack should be out and about on a nice afternoon like this anyway, shouldn't you, Jack?"

He nodded. "Yes, mother."

Aunt Flora smiled. "You're very kind."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "What do you need me for?"

"Well, John, I have been given a most wonderful opportunity to invest in a treasure hunt. You'll get the details when we make it to the old Appleby farm. Suffice it to say, an experience treasure-finder has been brought to town, and he is going to make us all rich!"

"Treasure-finder?"

The older woman's smile shifted from pride to indulgence. "Well, when I was a girl we called them water-witches. Dowsers. They'd tell you where to sink a well to get water. But this one can find gold, Master John. He'll prove it this afternoon. I want you there to see."

Jack and his mom exchanged a quick glance. "I would love to go, Aunt Flora. Can we ask my friend Henry Lee to come, too?"

"The young man from the Shippington mansion? Yes, of course, by all means."

"Great. I'll call him." Jack shifted on the stairs. "I'll get my phone and a few other things. Just to be sure."

"Splendid, splendid." Flora clapped her hands. "I do believe, Mina, your boy enjoys these adventures more than you ever did!"

***

Aunt Flora had her limousine driver stop by Henry Lee's place on the way out to the Appleby farm. Henry had moved to North Greenvale in the summer. Jack had seen the Asian-American boy at the YMCA. They both attended sixth grade at Erik Weisz Middle School. They were lab partners in science class and geeked out over science fiction, games and science in general.

Jack briefed Henry on the Appleby farm. "Horace Appleby owned most of North Greenvale at one time. He made money off logging, farming and some manufacturing. He made a fortune during the Civil War—some folks said by cheating on government contracts. He worried about the Confederate Army coming north to steal his fortune. Local legend has it that he buried a bunch of strong-boxes full of gold throughout the area. He died without revealing where any of them were."

Henry frowned. "Lots of folks must have looked for them."

Aunt Flora laughed. "For year and years, Master Henry. The Appleby family fell on hard times after Horace died. They sold off great portions of the estates, but not before having dug up every inch of the plots. During the Depression treasure hunters poured over what was left. Eventually the last of the Applebys moved away and the town took over the farm for taxes."

The limo pulled onto a dirt road that wound its way up a low hill. At the top stood the ruins of what had once been a proud stone house. The roof had long since sagged in, and trees thrust branches through the windows from the inside. A number of other people—potential investors—stood on an area of lawn that had been raggedly cut back. A dozen post-holes had been dug in a circle roughly thirty feet in diameter.

A young man with thinning blond hair, wearing a grey suit suit and red tie over white shirt, smiled as he walked toward the limo. The driver helped Aunt Flora from the car. Jack and Henry piled out behind her. "Miss Williams, so happy you were able to come."

"My pleasure, Mr. Boyer." Aunt Flora waved a gloved hand toward the boys. "These are my nephew John, and his friend Henry. They're clever boys."

"Good, I might need some assistants." Boyer shook each boy's hand. Jack didn't like the man's soft grip, nor the way his nostrils had flared when Aunt Flora said they were clever. "Please, if you would join the rest of us."

Boyer led the way to the center of the circle. "Gather round, please. I want to thank you all for joining me here. This is a great opportunity for your town, to enrich it not only in monetary terms, but historical terms. You're all aware of the Appleby family contribution to North Greenvale. The endeavor we begin today will not only refurbish their reputation, but allow North Greenvale to place itself on the map as a tourist destination. I have drawn up some plans that will make this a reality, and if all goes well here today, I'll be speaking with your mayor very soon so we can make this a reality."

Boyer opened his arms and turned toward the ruins. "However, I am not the man whom you have come to see. I do not have the gift that will locate the Appleby treasure. For that we need an expert, and I present to you Augustus Fitch."

A man came around the corner of the house. He wore a red union-suit stained black around the cuffs and neck, with soiled overalls over. One pants' leg had been tucked into a half-laced, battered brown boot. The other boot was black and in not much better shape. Dirt made a thick, black line under the man's fingernails. He hadn't shaved in at least a week. What little hair he had on top of his head hadn't felt a comb or brush in forever. His icy blue eyes—one appearing bigger than the other—moved more quickly than the rest of him. The way he staggered, Jack thought the man might have been drinking.

As unsteady as he was, however, the divining rods in his calloused hands swung smoothly and fluidly back and forth. As Fitch enter the circle, he half-turned and his hands extended. The silvery rods, bent at the bottom to form grips, swung together and pointed at the thick, gold chain Aunt Flora wore. Fitch tugged hard at the rods, as if they were resisting him. He pulled them free of their attraction to gold, staggering back as he did so. The rods swung apart as he passed them over each boy, then he curled in toward the middle of the circle and Boyer.

"You'll be a-forgiving me, I hope." He scratched his unshaven throat with filthy nails. "There's times, you see, when there's so many riches, that I am just a-feeling them hither and yon. This is such a place. But I ain't a-specting you to be taking my word for it. No sir or ma'am."

Mr. Boyer, with some apparent reluctance, rested a hand on Fitch's shoulder. "You're asking yourselves, I'm sure, why, if there is so much treasure here as to make Mr. Fitch take notice, we don't just go out, dig it up and be done with it?"

Fitch shrugged Boyer's hand off his shoulder. "Well now, it's this way. I is the seventh son of a seventh son. Y'all know what that means. I have the Second Sight and the power. My granddaddy did, too, and he done tolt me how it works. This here power, it only works for good, and greed ain't good. Soes I go around and find lost things for people, returning good to them, see. I done found millions, and will take my reward in God's Heaven."

Boyer smiled. "As Mr. Fitch has so succinctly put it, he cannot use his powers to enrich himself. Our preliminary survey indicates that the majority of the Appleby treasure is located here, on the farm. We need to buy the farm from the city, then we will own the treasure. I have contracts that will sell you shares in our company. Fifty percent of the recovered treasure will be sold on the open market to repay you, and the other half will be donated to North Greenvale; along with enough money to create a museum and a visitors' center for all those who will come to see this location."

Aunt Flora nodded. "Very civic-minded of you."

"As Mr. Fitch said, he returns the lost to those who deserve it, and North Greenvale is very deserving." Boyer pointed over toward the corner of the building from where Fitch had appeared. "Augustus, if you don't mind."

The dowser nodded and headed off, fighting to keep his dowsing rods from drawing him to Aunt Flora again. Jack watched him, making sure the man disappeared from sight.

Boyer pointed toward the nearest of the holes. "I don't expect you to invest in supposition, so I propose a test of Mr. Fitch's ability." He dug into his pocket and produced a small golden coin in a plastic coin case. Jack recognized it easily since many of the coins in his collection came similarly packaged from the United States Mint. "Here I have this year's dollar coin. It's Ulysses S. Grant—fitting since he was the president when Horace Appleby died. I will have one of you place it in a hole. I have eleven more coins—quarters also encased in plastic—which will go into the other holes. You'll fill them in, then Mr. Fitch will find the gold coin. His random chance of being correct is one in twelve, and we can run multiple tests, if you wish. I assure you, he will always find the gold coin."

Jack raised a hand. "Excuse me."

"Yes?"

"Just to make the test scientific, shouldn't anyone wearing gold put their gold back in their cars?"

Boyer smiled. "My, you are clever, aren't you? Perhaps a couple of you would also like to go keep an eye on Mr. Fitch to make sure he's not watching?"

Two of the men appointed themselves to that committee, while everyone else, including Aunt Flora, returned to their cars to get rid of their jewelry.

Henry glanced over at Jack. "You know…"

"I do." Jack nodded confidently. "You'll need to get pictures of each hole. Make north equal twelve o'clock, then work around clockwise."

"Got it."

When people returned from their cars, Boyer directed them to pick a hole. Aunt Flora and Jack had number four. Boyer went around the circle, handing people coins. Flora got a quarter, but before she could bend down to drop it in the hole, Jack took it from her.

"You don't want to get dirty, Aunt Flora."

"Thank you, Master John."

"Now, if you all will put your coin in the bottom of the hole and scoop the dirt back on top of it, please." Boyer nodded as Kenny Erickson—the owner of the Jack & Sons Burgers chain—dragged the small mound of dirt into his hole. "And when you're done, just tamp it down good with your foot.

Jack laid his coin in the bottom of the hole, then dumped handfuls of dirt on it. It mounded up just a little bit, so he stood and stomped it down good and hard. Boyer came along, inspected his work, then added one final stamp to seal the hole.

"Well done, son. Thank you."

Henry, who had been following behind Boyer taking pictures, gave Jack a nod. He flashed him some fingers. The gold coin was in hole number nine—Erickson's hole.

"Gentlemen, if you would bring Mr. Fitch back, please." Boyer lowered his voice again. "And you, ladies and gentlemen, if you don't mind, please turn away from the circle. We don't want anyone suspecting that a stray glance might influence Mr. Fitch."

Boyer dutifully turned away from the circle and Jack did as well. Mostly. He actually kept looking at Boyer out of the corner of his eye and watched Fitch as he approached the circle. The man staggered as before. The dowsing rods swung wildly back and forth until Fitch entered the circle near hole six. Then they quieted down. Jack lost sight of him as he headed toward seven, then found him again as he came back to hole five.

Fitch approached hole four. Jack couldn't see him, but he could hear the dowser. The man was sniffing like a hound dog. He mumbled under his breath. The only words Jack actually understood were, "Nope, ain't here." Then Fitch came into view to his left and continued on around the circle.

Jack half-turned. The man moved slowly, the rods held steady. They didn't so much as twitch until he got around to hole number ten. Both of them skewed toward nine. Fitch snarled, which brought everyone around. He fought the rods, but then they fairly well yanked him off his feet toward number nine. Fitch dropped to a knee. The rods crossed and stabbed at the hole.

Kenny Erickson gasped.

Fitch ignored him and got to his feet like a man trying to haul an anchor from the river. He pulled back, staggered, then tried to go on to hole eight, but the rods plunged back toward hole nine.

Fitch surrendered to the rods and landed on his knees. "Praise the Lord. If this ain't the hole, I'm beat."

"But it is!" Erickson sank to his knees and scooped the dirt away. He reached down into the hole and pulled the coin out. He cleaned the dirt off and held it up. "See, there it is!"

Boyer plucked it from his hand and lifted it higher. "He found it, just as he'll find the Appleby treasure!"

Kenny Erickson stood and brushed dirt off his knees. He glanced at his wife. "Honey, get me my check book."

"I wouldn't do that, Mr. Erickson." Jack pointed a finger at Boyer and Fitch. "These two can't find gold."

Erickson shook his head. "I've seen them do it with my own eyes, son."

"Sir, you saw no such thing." Jack pointed to the coin in Boyer's hand. "One dollar coins in the United States look gold, but there's not a speck of gold in them. Anyone with a smart phone can look at the US Mint website and read that."

One of the men who'd kept an eye on Fitch pulled his phone out. He touched the screen several times, then looked up. "The boy's right."

Erickson shook his head. "Doesn't matter. He found the gold colored coin out of all the others. Hit it right off."

Henry held his camera up. "I took pictures of all the holes. Mr. Boyer stomped on each one. You can see his footprint on top. And on eleven of the twelve, it's his right foot. On number nine, he used his left foot. If you look at his left shoe, it has a line carved down the center of the heel. He tipped Fitch off."

Erickson's face flushed red.

Jack smiled and walked back over to hole number four. He dug down and pulled the coin from the bottom of it. "In case that's not enough for you, I didn't put a quarter in the bottom of my hole. This is the latest addition to my collection: a five dollar, Medal of Honor commemorative coin, straight from the mint. It's 90% pure gold. It was the only treasure in this field, and Mr. Fitch passed it by."

Fitch sprang to his feet and dashed off, looking a lot more spry than he ever had before. Unfortunately for him, the half-laced boots that made up part of his costume came loose and tripped him up. He sprawled face-first and Aunt Flora's driver pounced on him.

Boyer looked as if he wanted to run, but the circle of investors closed around him.

Erickson pulled out his cell phone. "I'm calling the police."

***

The police responded quickly enough, including Henry's mom, who was a detective with the North Greenvale fraud squad. Jack and Henry got to watch the crime scene investigators dig up the other coins for evidence. Henry turned his camera over so his mother could copy the pictures.

Finally, as the sun began to set and the police started to pack up, Aunt Flora bundled the boys into her car. "I'd still like to believe that Horace Appleby's treasure is out there somewhere, boys, because it is fun to dream. But…" She winked at them, "I think the true treasure in North Greenvale is the pair of young men seated right here with me. And that makes us all very rich indeed."

__________________________

I hope you enjoyed the story and the news about the At the Queen's Command giveaway. If you'd like to see more free fiction, please consider purchasing one of my books to support my fiction-writing efforts. Nice thing about the new age of publishing is that you become a Patron of the Arts, letting writers know what you'd like to see more of simply by voting with a credit card. (Authors charge less when they sell direct, so you save, we make more, and that frees us to write more.)

Tricknomancy is a braided novel. That's author for a serial story told through a number of shorter pieces that all come together as a novel. Think of it in terms of a television series. This is series one, consisting of seven episodes. The stories feature Trick Molloy, a magick-using, ex-cop who left the force because he was framed for being a dirty cop. He now works as a bouncer in a strip club, helping friends, solving murders and dealing with an insane family, most of whom would like to see him dead or worse. It's available for the Kindle, and for sale directly off my website for any epub compliant ereaders.

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Published on November 17, 2011 07:02

November 15, 2011

Perfectly Dead: Here's this weird thing…

I can't speak for all writers, but more often than not, buried in a novel somewhere, authors toss in little inside jokes. These are mentions that often escape folks on the first read. For example, in Fortress Draconis and When Dragons Rage there are very tiny, veiled references to the Harry Potter series of novels. In At The Queen's Command there's vague reference to the Twilight novels. A couple of people have seen them and reported them back to me. In I, Jedi there's even a reference to events from one of my BattleTech novels, though no one has ever mentioned it.

I'm not the first author to do that sort of thing, and won't be the last. In his novel The War in The Air, H. G. Wells takes a clean shot at George Griffiths, author of Outlaws of the Air. In Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels, Stout often mentioned the book Wolfe was currently engaged in reading. I've always wondered if those books saw a bump in sales when the august detective was mentioned as enjoying them. As a technique for creating verisimilitude, it has a lot to recommend it, because it roots the story in a particular time and, if the reader has also read that book, or is at least aware of it, the choice provides a great deal more insight into the character.

The best of those things I've ever done came in my book Evil Triumphant. In there a character is reading and comments positively on Roger Zelazny's A Night In The Lonesome October. I'd been at a convention, Conduit in Salt Lake City, and got to hear Roger read most of that novel over the course of the weekend. The fun bit of writing it into Evil Triumphant was that my novel came out six months before Roger's did. I was even able to hand Roger a copy of Evil Triumphant before his book came out which, if I recall his reaction correctly, greatly amused him.

In Perfectly Dead I'm doing something which is akin to all that, but entirely new—to me, anyway. The Merlin Bloodstone stories are all written from the point of view of Connor Moran, his aide. It's classic "Great Detective" stuff, following in the traditions of Poe, Doyle and Stout. The thing about Connor is this: he's a failed science fiction and fantasy writer. His career was three books and out. He started working for Bloodstone to tide him over and remained working for him because there's something attractive about a steady paycheck.

In making my notes for revising Mysterious Ways, the Bloodstone novel; I decided I'd play with another one of those inside jokes. In the original novel Connor was working on a new novel. In this newer, updated version, he's also working on new stories. Connor Moran is writing these stories about an alternate history United States, where the Twin Towers came down in 1993, and the country took a big lurch to the right. He's the architect of the Homeland Security Services stories, in other words. When the idea of assigning the property to his hand came to me, it tickled me no end.

Which all makes for a really interesting situation in Perfectly Dead. See, when I write the Bloodstone stories, I'm writing in Connor's voice. Perfectly Dead has me writing as Connor writing the HSS story. Moreover, what Connor doesn't know about his boss, Merlin Bloodstone, or his predecessor as Bloodstone's aide—a man named John Mansfield—he just makes up. Similarly, his iteration of individuals who live in his world and are annoying is a bit more harsh than they appear in the Bloodstone stories.

The fact that the murder being investigated in this book is of Connor Moran, and it gets even weirder. I have to write how a fictional character would see his life having been different were he not Bloodstone's aide; including how his friends and acquaintances might remember him. Which, of course, some readers might be inclined to read as me projecting myself into Connor who is writing about a dead Connor.

It's all kind of mind-bendy in a good fun way.

At this point in November, I've got just about 13,000 words done on the book. This week is fairly clear of other commitments so I should double that fairly easily. I'd targeted the book at 50,000 words, but it's expanding as it goes. That's not unusual, especially in the beginning of a book. At this point most all of the "case" material has been set down, now it's working through the permutations and then the end game. Plus all that characterization stuff. (Note: the remark about characterization was written with heavy sarcasm, as bait for a foaming-at-the-mouth rant from anyone who decides the lines above that indicate that I'm writing from some formula and, in effect, just filling in the blanks.)

The most important thing about Perfectly Dead is this: I am having a blast working on it. This is what writing is supposed to be: fun. That's why I started writing in the first place, to entertain myself. The fact that others find what I do entertaining is great—and that I get money for it is better yet, since this allows me to keep doing it. But, really, it's a chance to hang with friends new and old and see how they get along together. (Yes, they are imaginary friends, but still… )

Okay, back to the word mines…

_______________________

My latest paper novel, Of Limited Loyalty, is due out in December and is available for pre-order now.

For the Kindle edition, just hit this link.

To purchase it through iTunes for your iPad/iPhone/iPod, just hit this link.

To purchase it through Barnes & Noble for your Nook, please use this link.

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Published on November 15, 2011 04:51

November 8, 2011

November's Novel: Perfectly Dead

I'd fully intended, during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) to blog on a daily basis about the novel I'm working on for the month. The goal of NaNoWriMo, of course, is to kick out a 50,000 word novel, and that's the length I've been targeting for my Homeland Security Services novels. Writing the second one during November seemed like a good choice and on 1 November I actually got a start on Perfectly Dead.

Then I got hit by a cold which left my throat raw, my head pounding and me spending more time asleep than awake. Yuck. It didn't help that every day I didn't work, I was falling behind on that project and others. Double yuck.

But this morning I got back on track and cranked out the first chapter for Perfectly Dead. It's the second of the HSS novels and begins on 10/30/11 with a pretty nasty murder. Things will get even more gruesome from there.

I'm really excited about this book because I'm doing some things in it which will be a lot of fun to play with. Miracle Dunn remains the central character, but this story will take her a bit further afield than Perfectly Invisible. I mean that in two ways. First, the story is moved out to Phoenix. I've made it an "away game" for a couple of reasons, primary among them my desire to emphasize that HSS teams have a huge jurisdiction. They can operate anywhere and often do. Second, the story will move Miracle and Fyn past the realm of police procedurals. Sure, there will be plenty of CSI type stuff, clues to be found and figured out; but dealing with the aftermath of what they discover will take them in an entirely different direction than before. In Perfectly Invisible we got to see that Miracle and Fyn can kick ass—now we'll get an inkling of just how much ass they can kick.

These stories are about more than just who done it because they challenge the characters and their beliefs about the world. In Perfectly Dead I'll be able to push Miracle on her religious beliefs. You already know, from Perfectly Invisible, that she was raised Catholic and still attends Mass on a regular basis, though she's not quite as devout as her parents—and certainly not as devout as they think she should be. In this story I get to examine that a little bit more.

To challenge her on those points I need a fairly strong foil character, and here's the most fun I'm having with this book. The HSS universe is clearly not our own because of the divergent history of terrorist attacks. What I'm doing is dragging a character from another one of my worlds over into the HSS universe, to show how different his life would be under the 28th Amendment. The character I'm bringing over is Merlin Bloodstone, my occultist and detective, who chafes under the mildly conservative nature of our world, and who is not at all pleased with the HSS universe.

Being able to challenge Miracle is not the only reason Bloodstone is crossing over. I've always enjoyed crossover stories, so that makes it fun. The ability to take a character I love and run him around in a far more adversarial situation is entertaining and difficult—this is, in essence, an "away game" for him, too. Moreover, being able to have this novel support and promote work in both lines is important and, I believe, something we'll see far more of in the new age of digital publishing. Not only can I do this with my own characters, but I can write crossovers with other authors. (I'd started to do that before with Bloodstone ten years ago, but that project fizzled since there wasn't a way to make it profitable.)

And for anyone wanting to read between the lines, this does mean that I'm getting the Bloodstone novel, Mysterious Ways, edited and prepped for digital release. I'll be updating it—tech references mostly; the things which will age it the most quickly—should have it out very soon.

The other thing with Perfectly Dead which is going to be fun is that I'm not working with a hard outline. I've made tons of notes and will be outlining about five chapters in front of where I am. I've done this with several novels before: most recently In Hero Years… I'm Dead. It's a process that allows me a bit more flexibility to explore issues. Since the book will be written from Miracle's point of view, the process works well because I don't have to worry about balancing her viewpoint with anyone else's.

As I get further along I'll post some chapters; and I'll certainly keep everyone updated as I write. It's great being back writing about Miracle, and adding Bloodstone in makes it that much more enjoyable. And a really cool detail for anyone who's read the published Bloodstone stories: the victim who's body is discovered in the first chapter is Connor Moran. In our world, he's Bloodstone's faithful servant; but in the HSS world, there's more there than meets the eye.

Chapter One word count: 2634

_______________________

Writing blog posts is cutting into my fiction writing time. If you're finding these posts useful, and haven't yet gotten yet snagged my latest novels, please consider purchasing a book. Nice thing about the new age of publishing is that you become a Patron of the Arts, letting writers know what you'd like to see more of simply by voting with a credit card. (Authors charge less when they sell direct, so you save, we make more, and that frees us to write more.)

My latest paper novel, Of Limited Loyalty, is due out in December and is available for pre-order now.

For the Kindle edition, just hit this link.

To purchase it through iTunes for your iPad/iPhone/iPod, just hit this link.

To purchase it through Barnes & Noble for your Nook, please use this link.

View more on Michael A. Stackpole's website »

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Published on November 08, 2011 09:37

November 4, 2011

The New Midlist Writers

At the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego I had someone say to me, "Look, no offense intended, but you're a midlist author, and you've made that work for you." The remark was made in the context of a discussion of digital publishing. The speaker's point was that midlist authors, if they are going to survive, are going to make a transition into being either purely independent authors, or some hybrid where they have some traditional contracts and do indie publishing on the side.

Deciding who and what a midlist writer is in this day and age is very difficult. In many ways it's easier to define the other classes of writers. Obviously we have the brand-name, best selling authors who top the lists like Rowling, King, Clancy, DeMille and Dan Brown. Close to them are the genre bestsellers—those authors who rock the charts in their niches and often hit the national lists. Their sales are huge. They are the superstars. Publishers need their sales and see to it, through promotional pricing and other efforts, that these authors will continue to sell well.

Then there are the beginning authors. I'd peg them as anyone who has had three or fewer books published by traditional publishers. These folks are midlist-authors-in-waiting. With many publishing houses giving an author two books to make it big or turn to another name, these brand new authors don't have the sales numbers to determine yet where they're going. Some of them might actually break out and make it into the brand-name set—though, in the past, such success has normally been the result of a dozen years laboring in obscurity until a book hits.

Then there's everyone else. We're the midlist.

In the past—we're talking 20th Century here—the midlist authors were those who were on books 4+, working at a series, building up a readership. Back in the old days, before publishing had contracted into the big six, publishers would give writers 4-5 books to find their audience. I seem to recall it was the late 80s when the policy of "two books and out" got instituted amongst publishers, and that was after the consolidation of the industry had put bean-counters in charge of return on investment.

It wasn't just accountants for the publishers that killed the midlist. Bookstores made use of the liberal returns policies publishers offered to return slow-selling books. Midlist authors, you see, used to benefit from what's known as the long-tail. This is the idea that a reader who discovers your new book will buy up your previous books. Because those older books take up shelf-space that could be given over to newer books that sell faster (churn-rate is the term used to describe how fast they sell), readers couldn't find older books in stores.

In the 1980s, when the Reagan administration revamped the tax code, the cost of warehousing titles shifted from being a business expense to being a cost of inventory. It worked like this: if a paperback that cost .40 to print cost .05 to store for a year, at the end of that year the book would be considered worth .45 for tax purposes. This increased the value of inventory, which increased pre-tax profits. As a result, slow-selling books weren't worth the money to warehouse. To appease the accountants, old books got scrapped.

Back in those days, many a midlist author made a good living on backlist sales. Science fiction and fantasy had especially strong backlist sales. With stores cutting those books, however, and the IRS making it difficult to keep them in stock, publishers had to look at new strategies for turning a buck. Since backlist wouldn't sell, they had to expand their lists to put more front list (or new) titles out there—knowing those titles would have a much shorter sales cycle. This was really the first step in the periodicalization of novels. By the early 1990s one would regularly discover that a book which had won an award for excellence the year before was already out of print.

The closing of Borders and the shrinking of shelf space at Barnes & Noble has placed further pressure on book sales. Now, even if you have a book make it to a store's shelves, the chances that it will be there longer than four months are slender. If someone wants a backlist title—say the preceding book in the series—chances are excellent they will be referred to a website to special order it, or to order the electronic copy.

For as long as I can remember, folks have said the midlist was dying. In the 80s and 90s I recall having the blame laid at my feet because I, after all, was writing tie-in fiction which, I was told, was what was destroying the midlist. What those angry writers missed was that publishing, store and governmental practices had doomed the midlist, and tie-in books were an artificial measure to try to hang on to that center of the line. Go to a bookstore now and you'll even find the tie-in section has shrunk.

In its place we see the rise of the fad shelves. Again, these are an attempt by publishers and retailers to pile-on and profit from a popular trend. Can't fault them for trying. The problem is that when publishing teen vampire angst novels takes up half of the dozen books that used to comprise your SF line, authors who used to write perfectly good SF find no place to sell their work.

Unless they join the new midlist and self-publish it digitally.

Midlist authors used to be defined by sales levels, but now they're the writers who refuse to abandon their readers and their passion. They are the writers who are doing what they must to survive in the current environment. Midlist writers are the ones who came into publishing with the dream of seeing their books on bookstore shelves. As that dream became more difficult to realize—through no fault of their own—they turned to other methods to get the word out about their work. Midlist writers are the ones who are willing to learn new things and embrace change, so they can continue to do the things they love and, hopefully, make enough money at it to keep them going.

I love being a storyteller. It makes me smile when someone posts a note saying they liked the last book and want to see more. It still freaks me out when fully grown adults tell me about how they were reading me in high school, and how a book like I, Jedi helped them learn life lessons. You have no idea how much of an honor it is to have someone send me a picture of a child they've named after one of my characters (works for dogs and cats, too, but more so children). And when someone tells me that they decided to write, or they decided to keep at writing because of stuff they've learned from me, wow.

That's the kind of thing that takes your breath away.

The thing about being a midlist author in this new digital age is this: the label midlist is a label from traditional publishing. It doesn't define us anymore. That's part of being independent, part of taking responsibility for what we're doing with our careers. Some folks will use the label midlist like a skewer. They'll use it dismissively, in the same tone of voice with which they use self-published. They'll intend it to hurt.

But it shouldn't.

And it doesn't.

The one thing you need to remember about people like that is that they're speaking from fear. They're afraid that their rocket to the top is going to fail—when really it's the legacy publishing environment that fails them. They're afraid they're going to have to tell their friends and family that their publisher dropped them, or that their last book bombed.

And they're especially afraid, when they do that, that the rest of us are going to point and laugh because when hubris catches up with you, it can be so tempting for others to gloat.

I won't be doing the pointing or laughing.

I'll be the guy welcoming them to the new reality. I'll be the guy encouraging them to make their backlist available digitally. I'll do my best to point them in the right direction, offering all the help and advice I can. Because out here, outside the legacy labels, the only folks who will be looking out for us are us.

So, yeah, I am a midlist writer. I make it work for me.

No offense taken.

_______________________

Writing up this series of blog posts is cutting into my fiction writing time. If you're finding these posts useful, and haven't yet gotten yet snagged my latest novels, please consider purchasing a book. Nice thing about the new age of publishing is that you become a Patron of the Arts, letting writers know what you'd like to see more of simply by voting with a credit card. (Authors charge less when they sell direct, so you save, we make more, and that frees us to write more.)

My latest paper novel, Of Limited Loyalty, is due out in December and is available for pre-order now.

My digital original novel, In Hero Years… I'm Dead is available for the Kindle and in the epub format for all the other readers, including the Nook, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. (Imagine the Batman, Watchmen and Kick-Ass movies all rolled into one, as written by Dashiell Hammett, and you've pretty much got the idea of the book. Oh, and with some satire and political commentary slipped in for irony.)

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Published on November 04, 2011 11:33

November 1, 2011

Degrees of Slavery

While I was at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego, a bit of a controversy blossomed around my use of the phrase "house slave" in a blog post I wrote here back in May. Barry Eisler, in a guest post on J. A. Konrath's blog, mentioned my use of that phrase; so he caught the full force of the fury of authors who resented being called a slave and who suggested that the use of such a label trivialized the pain of slavery. Alas, in making that particular argument, they proved the veracity of what Barry was saying.

If one actually reads Barry's essay, he's referring to a mentality in which the oppressed defends the oppressor. He mentions Stockholm Syndrome. I remember Patty Hearst joining the Symbionese Liberation Army. The concept goes all the way back to the rape of the Sabines. It's a situation where folks come to define their self-worth in terms of the abuse they're having inflicted upon them—their only worth comes from the fact that they're worthy of being abused. Thus, any attack on their abuser is an attack on their self-worth and a challenge to their emotional and intellectual existence.

I don't think Barry is at all incorrect in creating this linkage. I would not be the first person to note the irony of authors who have so long and loudly decried the abuses of publishers now turning around and claiming publishers will save them. This is the mentality to which Barry refers and, if one reads my original essay, the situation to which I refer as well.

I need to address the whole idea of the trivialization of slavery, because that charge is a straw-man argument presented to shield authors from the reality of slavery and of the current publishing economy. Critics can point out that to refer to authors as slaves of the publishers is incorrect. It's been noted that authors are free to sign contracts or not; and this freedom means they are not slaves. That's a great argument, and seems solid, unless you look at the history and degrees of slavery.

The mistake critics are making is to focus on slavery as the ownership of the physical person—aka chattel slavery. More important than that is the ownership of that person's future production. Slavery, while it is a human rights issue, is also an economic issue. Owning people does not benefit the owner unless he can derive value from their labor. While chattel slavery involves the ownership of the physical person, there are other forms of slavery which purchase a person's labor. America, to a very great degree, was built on the backs of a second set of slaves: indentured servants or, as colonial sources like to call them, redemptioneers. Indentured servitude is internationally recognized as a form of slavery.

Here's how that system works. A person wants to come to the colonies for a chance at economic bounty. They can't afford the passage. So, they sign a contract with someone who will pay for their passage, and they promise to work the debt off. The redemptioneer might cut his deal with his future employer, or might have his contract sold from the shipper to someone in the colonies. The redemptioneer has sold his future to fund his present, commonly for a period of three to seven years.

This is what authors do when they accept a contract and advances which are accounted against his future output. An author is selling his labor to move him into a position of future bounty. (It's also what professional athletes do, but they have strong unions which specify how labor can be treated by ownership.) While this seems like a straight-forward contractual agreement, let's examine the finer points of what we get:

1) The publisher does all the accounting. Tales abound of errors which are uncovered by all-too-infrequent audits. Because an author can never be sure of the accounting, he never really knows when his term of servitude is up. This problem is typified by the "reserves against returns" practice where the publisher may withhold as much of earned royalties as they wish, for as long as they wish, from the author—even if the book is being reprinted and selling well.

2) Publishers demand that authors sign non-compete clauses in their contracts that prevent them from taking any other work during the period of the contract, despite the fact that the contract might last for multiple years, but the payout schedule and advance level are insufficient to provide a living wage for that same period of time. Even if an author goes ahead, writes the books fast, delivers and they are accepted, the non-compete would prevent them from doing any other work which might be published during that same period.

3) All contracts have a "right of first refusal" clause in them, which means the publisher has the right to first look at your next new work, and the right to match any offer from any other publisher for that work. Most of those clauses, however, have a timing aspect, where they don't have to consider your next work until the final book has been delivered, or within a time period around that delivery. The author, therefore, can be blocked from making any money with anyone else as the publisher takes his time deciding if he wants to continue to work with the author.

4) Some contracts have clauses that prohibit an author from writing any other work in a particular universe except for work to be published by that publisher. This looks great in a contract if you have a long and ongoing relationship with that publisher; but once you've been dropped, suddenly your best-loved work may be forbidden to you unless you, with no leverage, can get the publisher to strike that provision. (I found one of those lurking in a contract I signed a long time ago. It stings badly.)

5) Contracts regularly buy up rights the publishers know they are not going to exploit—like gaming rights, audio rights, stage play rights, movie rights. Those are lottery tickets for the publisher. If the author or his agent works hard, puts together a movie deal, the publisher wins, even if their publishing the book had nothing to do with the movie deal. (Face it, who in Hollywood actually reads books?) If an author does a treatment of his own book, sells it to a filmmaker on his own, he still owes money to the publisher and, in fact, under some contracts, may be prohibited from actually doing that side deal since those rights reside with the publisher.

6) Contracts allow a publisher to hold on to the rights to a work for a period of three to seven or more years, from the point that the work goes out of print. When that period is over, the author can ask for the rights back. In today's world, however, with print on demand making short runs feasible, and digital meaning something is always available, books never go out of print. Publishers hold the rights to those works for a minimum of 35 years, at which point United States Copyright law allows authors to petition to get those rights back. That means, for many authors, that their grandchildren will be the ones doing that petitioning.

Publishing practices likewise use authors rather roughly:

1) Publishers can, and have, worked in lock-step to determine "dealbreaker" aspects of contracts. Is it any surprise that prior to 2009 publishers would give authors 50% of income from electronic publishing (IEP) but that after Random House sent a note to agents in early 2009 that they were cutting that to 25% of IEP, other publishers fell into line? While critics might point out that an author is free to sign a contract with an onerous provision or not, their needs and lifestyle may not permit them to walk away from an offering. If an author has a mortgage, or kids, or has to pay for his own health insurance, he's handcuffed. Sure, in the eyes of many those handcuffs may be of gold, but they're still handcuffs.

2) More importantly, publishers have asserted, over and over again, that they own the electronic rights to books for which they have no contract for electronic rights. Short of suing to get those rights back, what can an author do? If he does sue, there goes any chance of future deals with that publisher.

3) Publishers, as often as not, will be late in paying authors, without any interest or penalties paid to the authors. Conventional wisdom has it that payments are always late, and a welcome surprise when they arrive early.

4) Conflicts of interest abound in the industry. A publisher who owns translation rights to a book will let a foreign branch of that company purchase the rights without negotiating. That's good for the corporate entity, but sucks for the authors. (I've had repeated cases where a publisher undersold my work into foreign markets and could do nothing about it.)

5) Publishers, when soliciting titles, will mention, as a matter of course, that "author appearances" are part of the marketing for the title. More than once I've had booksellers tell me that they've asked publishers if I'd go to their stores. The response is, "the author isn't touring"—making it sound like I'm the one who refuses to honor the promise the publisher made.

There are many more things which lurk in contracts and practices (and you can mention them in comments if you wish) which put authors in difficult and even onerous positions. The bottom line, however, is clear: authors are indentured servants whose futures are purchased. Their ability to make a living at their craft is restricted by someone who has complete control over their output and the accounting for its success. While authors can refuse these contracts, in theory, it boils down to a question of can you afford to be unemployed?

This concept is critical for understanding the relationship. In a normal employer/employee situation, the employee is paid for labor which has been performed. The employee is being paid for his past output, not his future production. He is free to take his labor any place else he wants to if his employer or employment situation becomes unpleasant. That's the theory, of course. How many employees, when forced with the choice of taking a 60% pay cut or being fired, would walk away from that job? Can they afford to?

With writers, because we sell our future labor to pay for our present life, the situation is much more difficult to figure out. Publishers, when calculating advances, tend to look at what they expect a book's sales to be over the first two years of life. That determines the advance. So, with a trilogy, then have to project out over roughly six years, since the last book will be two years old approximately six years after the contract is signed.

Because sales have been consistently dropping, and will continue to plunge in this market, advances have been slashed and major houses have dropped well-known authors simply because they can't project forward with any reliability. If the publishers over-pay, they're stuck with money they won't earn back. If the market were to pick up and they had cut the advance to the bone, they win. In theory, the author would win, too; but with a publishers' ability to manipulate and delay royalty payments, the earn-out and payment to an author might never come.

Authors dealing with traditional publishing may be put into situations, through contracts and industry practices, where they sell their future and the future of their intellectual property to people who, quite understandably, wish to profit from their labor. Publishers should and must look at the return on their investment in talent because that is their job, and their responsibility to their stockholders. Toward that end, the laborers are only good for what they can produce at a reasonable cost. Simple market fluctuations (or fad bubbles bursting) may suddenly make an author unemployable because he will no longer be profitable. It's not his fault, nor is it the publisher's responsibility to take care of him past any period of profitability.

Unfortunately for the author, he is likely to live beyond his period of profitability, unless he accepts new terms. I have a friend who used to play in the NFL and he tells the story of a coach telling him that at $400,000 a year they can't keep him, but at $250,000 a year they can. There was his choice: $0 or $250,000. Not really much freedom there, just an illusion of choice. Authors are in the same position.

All of the above could easily lead to a discussion of whether or all laborers are slaves, but that will keep. I'd like to return to a core point which is the reason behind my choosing to use the term "house slave" in that very first post. As I point out in the beginning of that post, I know the term is incendiary. I intended it to shock and draw attention. (And, I shall admit, I found it funny that while a number of writers fumed over it at World Fantasy, not a single one of them had the fortitude to speak to me directly about it. Nor, do I imagine, they actually read the original post.)

I wanted attention drawn to the issues I addressed because I don't want writers being hurt. Sure, we're all adults. We get to make our own decisions. I just want us making informed decisions. While a first time author might be over 21, that doesn't mean he has enough information and background to actually be informed about the intricacies of business. The "no further work in X universe" clause I mentioned above was in a contract I signed a good decade into my publishing career. How my old agent allowed it to go through, and how I didn't strike it, I don't know. Had I known then what I know now, it would have been gone, but now I'm stuck.

Those authors to which the label "house slave" has been applied are authors, in my opinion, who have not informed themselves well enough about the changes in the industry. If they have, if they've made informed decisions to stick with traditional publishing, more power to them. Those authors will dismiss the label and not look back.

But for those who haven't done their homework, for those who have not informed themselves about what's really going on in the digital revolution, the term should sting. They have the choice over whether or not they will remain indentured—wholly or in part. As I noted in the original article, my emphasis for all authors has been to get their backlist up and available online. It will make them money. If traditional publishers don't want to do collections of your short stories, or if you have a trunk novel no one wanted to publish, get it out there. Might as well have it earning something as opposed to nothing.

At World Fantasy I had a long talk with a publisher about digital publishing and midway through, he looked at me and asked, "Do you know how I'm still in business in ten years?"

"Nope," I said.

He smiled, "I'm still in business because 97% of authors are not as aggressive about digital as you are."

And if that does not give all of us—rebels, revolutionaries, indie authors and house slaves—something to think about, we're just not paying enough attention.

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Published on November 01, 2011 11:43

October 18, 2011

Perfectly Invisible: Why The Missing Deluxe Edition Is Missing

In the comments section of Chapter One of Perfectly Invisible, Russell Davis asked where the deluxe edition of Perfectly Invisible was. A year ago I released In Hero Years… I'm Dead in both a basic and deluxe edition. The deluxe edition included the full text of the novel and a long essay talking about how the book came to be written. It was pretty much the commentary track on a DVD option, costing $1 more. The deluxe edition has been wildly popular, outselling the basic edition seven to one.

Russell's question is a good one. I enjoyed writing the essay for IHYd. I enjoy teaching writing classes, and the essay about the novel was a way to share a lot of the process of writing a novel. It was also fun looking back it at after three years, recalling the decisions, consulting my notes and getting a better handle on exactly how I did some things which I'd done by gut instinct alone. It was as much a learning exercise in writing for me as it was for anyone reading it.

So, why no deluxe edition for Perfectly Invisible?

I have three main reasons for not having done one. First, I did an essay talking about the book and the world for my blog. It doesn't delve as deeply into decisions about what to write as the IHYd essay does, but it does cover world-building and philosophical points. Any longer essay about the HSS universe would certainly find its roots in that essay.

Second was the economic question. Perfectly Invisible sells for $3.99—just about $1 per hour of reading entertainment for the average reader. I do a lot of flying and it would get me through a cross-country flight, which pretty much does the job as far as I'm concerned. I don't commute to work (unless you consider taking the stairs a commute), but I think it should get someone through a week's worth of commutes. One of the reasons the Kindle edition does allow for text-to-speech is for those who want to listen while driving.

All that being said, adding $1 to the cost of the book for an essay about how it was written seemed a little steep. I'm as aware as the next guy that money is tight right now for a lot of folks. While I like making a living, and the extra dollar would net me 70 cents, which does add up, I really didn't want anyone thinking I was out to gouge them on prices. There are others in the publishing world who will do that, so I don't have to.

Third, and most important, is that I'm not ready to write such an essay. The reason for that is that this book is the first in a series that will evolve as more stories get written. Anyone who, as I did as a kid, read the Doc Savage novels in chronological order, got to see the stories change as the author got a better handle on the characters, world and audience. I found it a fascinating process and I find myself in the middle of that as I begin to work on new stories in this world. That process, and the changes made by and through it will form the core of any deluxe essay.

For example, just yesterday I did the prep work on what will be the second novel in the series. A number of folks have described Perfectly Invisible as reading an episode of CSI or Law and Order. I consider that a high compliment. Both are police procedurals, and I love watching puzzles getting put together. CSI uses all sorts of cool tech, and Law and Order is great dealing with characters. I could probably settle into writing mystery after mystery in exactly that vein and have a really successful series.

The fact is, because of the setting I've created, I can and want to do more. When I was working on the Star Wars® X-wing comics for Dark Horse Comics, my editors and I agreed that we had several types of stories we could tell. Military SF was clearly one of them. Because it was Star Wars®, doing stories that touched on the mystical aspects of the Force had to be done. We also did stories that came up through issues in Wedge's past; or to set up things that would take place in the novels. We got to introduce Corran and Iella and Mirax in the comics. Through those pages Baron Fel was born, and that gave us the chance to tell a long saga from the Imperial point of view.

I have a whole list of story types I want to play with. I designed the Homeland Security Services teams so they could do anything. We need a Sherlock Holmes puzzle, great, got that covered. Hunt for a missing child; I can do that. Undercover operation infiltrating a biker gang, not a problem. Full-blown military-style assault with guns blazing; we can do that, too. (The story I worked out yesterday is even more odd, and will be a hell of a lot of fun.)

My thinking on deluxe editions is this: every so often I'll gather up a couple of books, maybe some of the short stories, and toss in an essay talking about that set of things, and wrap it up in a package. I'll also make the things available as stand-alones so folks have the ala cart option open to them. As always I'll keep the prices low and affordable. If you keep buying, I'll keep writing.

Deal?

_________________________

For those of you who haven't tried Perfectly Invisible yet, now is your chance. I've provided three sample chapters here on my website, or you can click on any of the online retailers below and download a free preview of the novel. It's the first of a series in which I'll provide both novels and shorter works. (The novel is 50,000 words long, or a five hour read for the average reader.)

The full novel is available for purchase right now from my webstore. Just click on the cover image to the left, or on that link. The novel runs $3.99, and the package in my store has both the Kindle and epub versions of the books, so you'll have a copy that works with any of your readers. As always, the books are presented without DRM (digital rights management) and I have a note with instructions for getting the book onto ereaders and smartphones. Please remember, by purchasing stories direct from authors, not only do you pay less, but you become a patron of the arts. You vote with your dollars, and that tells us what you'd like to see us continuing to write.

For the Kindle edition, just hit this link.

To purchase it through iTunes for your iPad/iPhone/iPod, just hit this link.

To purchase it through Barnes & Noble for your Nook, please use this link.

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Published on October 18, 2011 10:31

October 14, 2011

IOS 5 iCal to IOS Device and iCloud Event Syncing

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Please forgive the Mac/IOS 5 neepery here, but I ran into a problem using the iCloud service to move data from iCal, the calendar program on the Mac, to iCloud and down to my iPad. Specifically, while events created at the iCloud website or on my iPad would appear on iCal on my laptop, items created on my laptop would not go in the other direction.

Very frustrating.

I checked the Apple support forums and a lot of other users were having the same problem. So, I started playing around with things and found the simple solution.

When you create an event in iCal, you are offered a choice of calendars to assign it to. With the new system software in place, that list of calendars has added a new set, which duplicates all your other calendars (or at least the ones you set up in iCal). This new set is listed under iCloud.

When you create a new event in iCal, it defaults to the calendars which are native to your Mac. If you choose, instead, the matching calendar from the iCloud list, the event migrates up to the cloud and down to your IOS device seamlessly.

I hope this helps!

_________________________

For those of you who don't know me, when I'm not goofing off trying to figure out how to use an iPad in new and novel ways, I write novels. If you found the above fix useful, you can show your appreciation by snagging a book of mine to read on your IOS devices. Luckily, I have just the thing for you: a brand new novel: Perfectly Invisible. I've provided three sample chapters here on my website, or you can click on any of the online retailers below and download a free preview of the novel. It's the first of a series in which I'll provide both novels and shorter works. (The novel is 50,000 words long, or a five hour read for the average reader.)

For the Kindle edition, just hit this link.

To purchase it through iTunes for your iPad/iPhone/iPod, just hit this link.

To purchase it through Barnes & Noble for your Nook, please use this link.

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Published on October 14, 2011 08:57

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