Mary Sisson's Blog, page 129

Cracking the code

So I recently did a post about talking to readers about your book, and JW Manus did a post about it, too, that got picked up by Passive Voice and had some good comments.

And of course, we're all talking about how to communicate to readers what's in the book. And as Manus points out, you're also trying to entice readers. Manus writes, "What are readers getting excited about? Seriously, make a list of the buzzwords. Readers who liked those popular titles will be looking for similar titles to enjoy. To help them find yours, focus your book description on what the readers are actually looking for."

He's not talking about lying to people about what's in your book--that's going to backfire, badly. He's talking about figuring out how people who love books with X, Y, and Z in them figure out whether or not a book has X, Y, and Z. If your book also has A, some B, C, D, something between H and I, Q, T, and a little W, don't highlight that--it's too complicated for a description. Keep it simple: If you like X, Y, and Z, read this book.

In other words, you are designing a signal. You are creating a code.

When readers talk back, they also talk in code. Even if they don't know it.

"Not much happens" was a HUGE screaming signal that I had incorrectly positioned Trang as adventure sci-fi. It was not subtle to me, because I have heard many, many jokes made about people who don't like [INSERT CLASSIC OF ENGLISH LITERATURE HERE] because "nothing happens"--it's right up there with "Shakespeare uses too many big words" among Responses That Will Instantly Evoke Scorn Among the Literati. And it means something specific: It means that the reader likes plot and doesn't care about characters or prose.

I was lucky that that response was so stereotypical. I was also lucky that I have almost 20 years of making a living as a writer to give me confidence in my writing. I don't read something like that and think, "I have failed" or "I'm a bad writer." I read that and go, Oops! Better change the cover!

I think if that kind of review is going to make you extremely upset, insecure in your abilities, and (most important) like you don't want to write any more, and if you can't possibly control that response, then I guess you probably should refrain from reading reviews. But if you can take a step back, disconnect your emotions and your self-esteem from what is written, and read reviews for the feedback they contain about what readers were expecting and what they got, they can be very helpful.

Even when I receive positive reviews, I don't think to myself, Gee, I guess that means I can write! Of course I like getting those sorts of reviews--I'm not made of stone--but if I couldn't write, I would have starved to death back in 1992. What those types of reviews tell me is that 1. Trang is positioned correctly, 2. it will work as a loss leader, and 3. I better get Trust out, because people are waiting for it. That is all very useful and motivating information to have, but it doesn't change my opinion of my book or of myself as a writer.

I think the important thing to remember when communicating with readers is that there's no such thing as an empirically good book. It simply doesn't exist. I know someone who likes only political nonfiction, I know someone who likes only lesbian erotica, I know someone who likes only classical Greek and Latin literature. You could never, ever get those three people to agree on whether a particular book is good--it's just impossible. And you don't have to--you just have to make sure that your book on health-care policy, your story about nude cheerleaders who spank, and your translation of Euripides all wind up in the right hands.

Progress report

Yay progress! Technically, I finished this editing pass today, but I added new material to the Epilogue, so I want to go over that one more time before I really consider it done. I've got the kid tomorrow and Wednesday's kind of booked, but this should be totally done on Thursday. Then I think I'll take a few days to deal with the tax & house crap that's piling up, and then read through it again.

Lack-of-progress report

Yeah, no progress today. I was going to throw this chair out, and then I realized that I could fix it, and then I realized that they had designed it so that it was a total pain the ass to fix, because they want you to throw it away and buy a new one, so I fixed it anyway.

Then I ran some errands.

This was all stuff I was planning on doing...as soon as I was done with this editing pass. Upon reflection, I think it's nerves--they become a problem the closer I get to actually finishing something.

More funny numbers about bookselling

I should just stop reading The New York Times' coverage of the book industry, right?

But I read this story on Barnes & Noble and how it can't possibly go under because traditional publishers don't want it to.

Well, that sounds like a sound business plan.

Of course the article regurgitates the not-at-all made-up fact that Barnes & Noble controls 27% of the e-book market. And we know this isn't self-serving propaganda from Barnes & Noble, because all those traditional publishers--you know, the ones who will be totally screwed if Barnes & Noble goes under?--they swear up and down that it's so!

Yeah, that number is not self-serving propaganda from Barnes & Noble, it's self-serving propaganda from Barnes & Noble and the traditional publishers. Good to know. (Even if you think that they're not just lying--and publishers do have a long and storied history of lying about book sales--then this would still indicate that Barnes & Noble's figures apply only to to e-books from large, traditional publishers.)

And of course despite the fact that Barnes & Noble has been plowing under indie bookstores since its inception, they have to trot out the poor, poor indie booksellers.

Did you know that, according to the article, "Since 2002, the United States has lost roughly 500 independent bookstores — nearly one out of five." Sounds awful, huh?

Of course, that's since 2002. Pick a different start date, like they did in this Washington Post article published last August, and the picture looks different, too:

The American Booksellers Association, the national trade organization for independently owned bookstores, counted a 7 percent growth last year and has gained 100 new members in the past six months. The association now counts 1,830 member stores across the country, up by 400 since 2005, according to Meg Smith, the association's spokeswoman.

 

Hmm.... So there has been a big decline in independent bookstores, but it's a result of what was happening between 2002 and 2005. I'd guess it had something to do with the economic conditions following Sept. 11th. It's certainly got very little to do with what is driving Barnes & Noble under in 2012, which I would argue is the result of them adhering to a business strategy (large selection plus low prices) that Amazon does better.

Then we stop getting numbers, because that would involve the reporter actually having to do some work. Instead, we rely on weepy, unsupported generalizations straight from the mouths of traditional publishers. The backlist "would suffer terribly," which is exactly why so many writers are fighting to get the rights to their backlists returned to them. And the CEO of Macmillan (you know, one of the publishing houses currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Union, because traditional publishers would rather break the law than adapt to the new world of bookselling) assures us that "Anybody who is an author, a publisher, or makes their living from distributing intellectual property in book form is badly hurt...if Barnes & Noble does not prosper."

Wow. Tell that to Joe Konrath.

Don't fear the freebies

Buroker did a tweet I liked: "#promotip Stop whining about whether free ebooks frak up the marketplace and test this and other price points for yourself."

Her tweet was funny, but I've seen people fretting themselves into high blood pressure and an ulcer over the availability of free e-books. They're not worried about whether or not they should offer a freebie, they're worried that everyone else will offer everything for free, and the bottom will fall out of the market.

I think this is a misunderstanding of the supply/demand curve. You look at the demand half, and sure thing, demand goes up as the price goes down. Prices get too expensive? People switch to a substitute good.

There's no question that this happens. This is what destroyed the encyclopedia industry that once employed me. This is exactly why I am optimistic about self-publishing and e-books.

But there are several important things to keep in mind before freaking out because other people might offer their books for free (aside from the fact that it's almost never helpful to freak out about things you have absolutely no control over).

Thing #1 The supply/demand curve relies on several assumptions that don't actually exist in the real world. There are many of these (for example, in the magical world of classical economics, everyone knows every price available for every item), but the most important one for our purposes is that it assumes all the goods for sale are identical.

Books are not all identical. At all. Now, I would argue that if I'm asking you to pay $26 for Mystery A, and Mystery B, which is similar, is available for $4, you are fairly likely to choose Mystery B. But you could be a big fan of the author of Mystery A, in which case you might gladly pay $26, or even way more than that if it's a first edition or something.

Why are you being so economically irrational? That brings us to....

Thing #2 The cost of a book to the reader is only partially represented by its cost in dollars.

When I read The Fountainhead, it costs me nothing in dollar terms, because I got it from the library. It cost me hours and hours of my time, however, because that damned thing is 800 pages long. It also cost me a great deal of mental and emotional anguish, because it's a terrible, simple-minded book, littered with identical two-dimensional characters making the same point over and over again, and it was written by a mentally-defective, sexually-dysfunctional bore who thought she was the wisest person in all the land.

There are many more Ayn Rand books in the library, and they are free, but I swear to you, I will go to my grave without having read another.

Reading a bad book is a ghastly experience. A bad book makes you wonder why you even bother with humanity. If people invest their time and energy into a bad book, they are just as pissed if the book is cheap or free as they are if it is expensive.

If the cost of a bad book is $0 + your time + your frustration and rage, and the cost of a good book is $4 + your time + your joy and delight, the good book is actually less expensive. People do this math unconsciously all the time: Many people pick up free books and never read them. I strongly doubt that these people aren't reading at all. They just aren't reading the free books, because they'd rather spend their time and energy buying and reading books they know they're going to like.

(The problem traditional publishing faces is that they're offering a very similar book experience but trying to charge $10-$20 more for it. By and large, that math isn't going to work.)

Thing #3 The supply/demand curve has a whole other half to it, called the supply curve.

The demand curve is pretty easy for most people to understand, because most people have hunted a bargain or two in their lifetimes: If it's cheaper, more people will buy it.

But the supply curve sometimes takes a little thinking. Let's say you have a job offer from Firm A that pays $40,000 a year. Firm B offers you a job--identical in every way to Firm A's job--but it would pay you $80,000 a year.

Which job would you take? The one that pays more! Guess what? You're a supplier (supplying labor in that example). Suppliers want to be paid more. The more money that can be made by supplying something, the more people will supply it.

So you look at that supply curve again, and you look what happens when the sale price of the good reaches zero--the number of suppliers does the same thing.

In short, people are greedy, or at least they want to be able to make a living. Surprise! (And hey, it looks like traditional publishing is on the wrong side of that curve, too!)

But gee, there are a ton of free books out there, right? Sure. But I would argue that the majority of them are by people who are either 1. supplying a loss leader, or 2. not serious writers. The people in the first group are offering one free title in hopes that readers will try it, like it, and (this is key) buy more. These authors aren't training readers to get books for free; they're training reader to seek out their other titles. And I'd say they have a lot of evidence on their side that this works. They are your competition, I suppose, but it's not like you didn't have any before.

The people in the second group don't ever expect to make any money writing--they just feel it's important to get the word out about how the Martians have allied with Al Qaeda and Mossad and are remotely controlling President Obama via the ozone layer and Kindle readers. They tend not to work too hard on their craft.

Thing #4 There is nothing new with having a gazillion free books available to compete against yours. It's called the library, and it's been around a while.

Thieving thieves who thieve

Edittorrent (via PV) has a disturbing post on a bad new agency practice (she starts out thinking it might just be a rumor because it sounds so bad, but no, it's real). Some agencies are asking authors to sign away 15% on revenue earned by books the agency doesn't sell to a publisher. If you sign this sort of contract, and the agent fails to sell the book, and then you self-publish (completely on your own), you owe the agent 15% of what you make, even though they failed to provide any service of value.

An agent is an agent, guys. You don't pay random real-estate agents fees for houses you bought without their help. You don't pay headhunters fees for jobs you got without their help. You shouldn't have to pay literary agents fees for revenue you have earned without their help. "We only make money if you make money" does not mean "if you make money entirely by your own devices, with zero assistance from us," OK?

The recent changes in publishing have not be easy on agents, and as a result, sleazy contracts are becoming more common. Watch out and take care.

Progress report

I went over the new scene and edited the next scene so that it fit in. Then I edited the next chapter. Buuut I'm going to have to go over that sucker again--the new scene is rather dramatic, but because it didn't exist before, in the next chapter it's like everyone got bonked on the head and completely forgot about it! So there's going to have to be some more significant reworking of the final chapters for continuity's sake.

Writing about a book vs. writing a book

One of the things that I'm going to have to do after I finish this editing pass is to cook up jacket copy for Trust and polish the description.

Whether you self-publish or publish traditionally, you have to get the hang of writing about your book, which is a very different thing than writing the book itself. Basically you have to sort out who would want to read your book and why--which was something I struggled mightily with in my initial description.

My current description mentions things like, "Hey, this book is character driven," which I think falls in the same category as "Hey, this book has a language advisory" or "Hey, this book is erotica" or "Hey, this is a short story." Certain things you really need to be very up-front about, because there are readers who are really looking for it and others who will get extremely upset.

The New Podler quote serves double duty: It's a favorable review (you want to highlight any quality markers you have, which is why the first sentence is that review and the next sentence begins "Award-winning writer"), and it plays up the '60s social sci-fi thing, which some people really like.

You also have to show the reader in the description that you can actually write this sort of book. Wacky comedy? Your description had better not be dry and dull. Tender romance? Your description should make people cry.

In some ways, it's easier if you self-publish because it's clear what the description is--it's what people see when they click on your title on Amazon. Obviously, it's marketing copy written to sell the book.

In traditional publishing, it's a little confusing, because when you send off your book to an agent or editor, you include what's called a synopsis. We all wrote synopses in English class, right? It's a summary of the plot of the book. When I first started sending stuff out, I bought a book about selling novels, and it told me that it was very, VERY, VERY important that the entire plot get crammed into that synopsis.

You know what I found out? People who sell books about selling novels don't actually sell or buy novels. In other words, that was completely wrong advice. Actual agents and published novelists will tell you that a synopsis is a marketing document. The job of the "synopsis" is to do exactly what a description does--to sell your book. You're selling to an agent or editor, not to a reader, but the goal is the same--someone should read that puppy and say, "Oh my God! I've GOT to read that book!"

Progress report

I wrote more of the new chapter 25--it seemed to be taking kind of a long time, so I ran a word count on what I wrote yesterday and today (I don't remember exactly where I stopped yesterday). Anyway, it turns out that I've written 3,550 words, plus quite a bit of editing, so that explains that.

I should be able to finish out chapter 25 tomorrow (it's mostly chopping down the last scene, which now doesn't need to be nearly as long), and then the final chapters don't need that much work.

Then I think I'm going to take a few days off from it and work on some cover and marketing B projects (plus some tax crap). Then I'll read it over, print it out and read it over, and start laying it out.

Build that fort!

For whatever reason, I find the Web site Unclutterer to be surprisingly inspirational. (It also motivated me to organize my house a little better, although honestly, I think it's impossible to read that thing and not organize something.)

This is one of the more inspirational posts. Erin is writing about her toddler son, who likes to build forts and builds them all the time, everywhere she will let him.

 

My son's obsession with forts has reminded me how truly simple it can be to pursue the life you desire. My son likes building forts, so he builds forts. He doesn't talk about building forts or wish he were building forts or make excuses for why he can't build forts, he simply builds forts. When he is tired of fort building, he will play with trains because he wants to play with trains or whatever interest is next on his agenda. Unless I tell him he can't do something because it's unsafe (like building a fort inside the stove), he'll do whatever it is he wants to do.

 

When I was first considering moving into creative writing, I was really intimidated by it--I grew up reading and majored in English (going the hard-core honors route) and all that. And if you have basically worshipped writers your whole life, it's hard to think of little ole you actually writing, you know, real books.

The question I had for myself was, Would I produce anything any good? And one day, it occurred to me that, before she started writing, Flannery O'Connor did not know she was Flannery O'Connor, Legend of Literature. There was no hand coming out of the sky, writing with burning letters in the air, "GO, THOU, FLANNERY O'CONNOR, AND WRITE! YOU'D BE REALLY GOOD AT IT!"

No, Flannery O'Connor had to do it the hard way--she had to write, and then see if her writing was any good.

And you know, that was an important realization: Writers write. If you want to be a writer, then you have to write. You can talk about it until you're blue in the face, but you won't be a writer unless you get words onto paper. There's no intermediate step. (I mean, yes, Flannery O'Connor got into the Iowa Writers' Workshop, but she had to write first to make that happen.) No one can do it for you. You just have to make that leap and then see what you've got.