Paul Mannering's Blog

Feministy

TRIGGER WARNINGS – because everything needs a trigger warning these days.

DISCLAIMER – I’m a Cis-Hetero-White-Male

The view from where I stand is pretty damn good. I can see everything clearly which allows me to make judgements. I can pick and choose my crosses to bear and give my support to whichever ideology or cause I want.

As a CHWM life is fucking sweet!

Because I have this privileged view, I literally stand on the balcony overlooking the seething masses of the less privileged.

I hear women speaking out against misogyny, sexism, and abuse. I see people with their own unique perspective of their personal gender, sexuality and individuality striving for acceptance and I guess some kind of validation of their identity.

I see right-wingers howling that the President of the US is going to bring about some kind of Biblical Armageddon. I see my country’s leaders doing their own quick-step to keep the money men happy without completely alienating the  impoverished  Middle Class voters (because seriously, they don’t even care about the impoverished).

I see Social Justice Warriors embarking on their Crusade of the Week.

Joss Whedon must die!

You can’t have a female Thor!

Mad Max is feminist propaganda!

Game of Thrones had a rape scene!

Expel the Student Union member who said #KillAllWhiteMen !

Bring Back Our Girls!

Okay that last one hasn’t been on the menu for over a year now. Because there are far more important things to worry about – like making death threats against a director because a film suggested that women identify as monsters if they are unable to have children.

Personally, I think that Boko Haram is more monstrous than the Avengers commentary on forced sterilization.

There’s no shortage of things to be upset about. People jump on bandwagons and form lynch mobs with frightening ease.

What I interests me is why?

I understand that there are causes that people have strong feelings about. There are tragedies and injustices and all manner of bad things happening in the world. This sort of shit has been going on for about 500 Million years now.

What has changed recently is the way we communicate, social media, anonymous public forums attended by billions who can say pretty much whatever they hell they want. People are finding support and like-minded individuals and seeing a relationship – these people feel the same way I do. We want to belong – so with the mob, we get noisy because we know they will back us up.

For example, one voice saying “People need to be treated as equals, regardless of gender,” is going to get burned at the stake.

When a million people start saying it, they get taken more seriously and others join the crowd – until a minority becomes a larger minority.

Then two things happen almost immediately.

The group splinters into different factions of what, “Women need to be treated as equals, regardless of gender” actually means and how to achieve lasting change.

Those who believe that such equality will mean the end of the world coalesce into their own groups that are the polar opposite of the various factions in the initial group.

The group that is now speaking out and demanding change, goes to war – not only with the status quo – to which their opposition brought them together in the first place, but also with the groups that came together to defend the status quo – and most confusingly, with the factions within their larger minority who want things to be done their way.

Meanwhile, people like me (CHWM) are sitting on our balcony and watching a confusing mass of opposing ideals and judgements collide until the only thing we hear (because it gets the media attention) is the occasional extremist voice.

Douglas Adams once summed up Christianity as “…almost two-thousand years after a man was nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be for people to be nice to each other for a change…” which for a non-religious person like myself – was one of the most profound things I had ever read.

Not only is the core philosophy of most religions to be nice to each other (it’s a good social-evolutionary tactic – if you share, they share and you all survive long enough to have children that can continue your genetic heritage) but it is the basic tenet that is completely lost as soon as someone expresses an opinion. This is why it seems you can’t define Feminism, because there are as many different interpretations of it as there are feminists.

The core idea is equality and freedom. Women (or any other person on the gender-spectrum) should be free to self-actualize, treated with respect, and be allowed to do what they want –within the social boundaries of their culture. Human society has evolved past our biological requirements.

Practically, this means – anyone can get married, or not. Anyone can have children, or not. People can wear what they want, or not. Say what they want, read, write or present what they want in media, provided it doesn’t result in physical harm to anyone else.

Haaaaaaaaaaang on… Does that mean depictions of rape, abuse, sexism and hate speech in media are okay?

Kinda.

Freedom of speech isn’t about only hearing what you like. It’s about having the freedom to express yourself. People who say things we disagree with are not protected from feedback or complaints, or language and media that makes them feel threatened, triggered, or otherwise icky.

The fine line is where you actually call on people to rape, murder, use sexist or demeaning language against anyone else. It’s that point where your actions, ideas, and language result in direct harm to an actual person.

Haaaaaaaaaaang on… Does that mean depictions of rape, abuse, and sexism in media are NOT okay?

Again, Kinda.

If you enjoy media experiences where people are characterised by their gender, race, sexuality and are portrayed as villains, victims, less valued and so on. You need to decide for yourself what is acceptable. There have been long arguments against violence in video games as causing violence in real life (there is no evidence of this however). Then we have social atrocities like Gamergate – which I think has less to do with the effect of video games on human brains and more to do with people being really messed up.

Shit happens. Often in stories past, present and future. Across all genres, conflict occurs. Often this means bad things happen to bad people. Rape (of all genders) occurs. Death, dismemberment and so on are normal. If you’re offended by rape and violence in fictional media, that’s fine. I’m not engaged by it either. I do accept however that this sort of things does happen IRL, and therefore – it’s a valid inclusion in human stories. Maybe not in a sit-com, but Game of Thrones has never been a show in need of a laugh track.

Most of us have been raised with a moral compass that points in a direction that suggests we treat people with respect and we expect to be treated in a similar way in return.

Apathy is  strength. It affects me not a damn if you define yourself in a non-binary gender way. I will fully support you and your right to identify that way. Ditto with anything else. If you believe Obama is the Antichrist – I may think you’re an idiot, but I am completely okay with you believing that.

However, if you decide the only solution is to kidnap the POTUS and conduct an exorcism involving waterboarding him with holy water – then, although this does not affect me personally (it’s not like I’m being waterboarded) you have gone from expressing an opinion to taking action that directly harms someone. That I cannot support.

Apply this to which ever stream of feminist philosophy you like, also gender equality, race, religion, culture. Believe what you want. Say what you like, and always act respectfully towards people.

If acting respectfully means you have to reconsider your beliefs and change what you say – you may have finally worked out how to be a successful human.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colour Me Gobsmacked

Somethings cannot be explained in one simple blog post. So I’m doing a series of reviews of Mad Max: Fury Road. This one is about the colours used in the film.

Twenty-four hours ago I was sitting in a theater watching Mad Max: Fury Road. If I had a choice, I’d still be there, watching the film again and again and again. The Judge who made the statement about pornography being difficult to define, but you know it when you see it, also applies to art.

I can’t explain why a 1954 untitled painting which consisted of a block of blue paint and a block of yellow paint recently sold for $45 million. But clearly, to someone it was art. Films can be like that, except pornos. You kinda know what you are looking at when a porno film is on.

I’m pretty sure it’s not pornography…

Mad Max is not a porno, but it sure as hell is art. Sweet, subtle, glorious art. Color Theory considers how colour is used to convey emotion and scenes in films.  There is an excellent analysis of colour palette in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down here.

George Miller is a man who knows how to use colour in films and this is never more apparent than in Fury Road. The dusty yellow and orange of the desert is a rich and vibrant palette that avoids being washed out and monotonous. Everything is covered in dust, the world is a desert. A parched and dry, dead place. People are a key part of that colouration. They wear ragged clothes that are filthy (of course) but are also cast in earth tones and act as effective camouflage.

This contrasts with the bone white colouration of Immortan Joe’s War Boys. With scarification, white body paint and skull like eyes, they are the walking dead. They worship the machine like purity of chrome to the point where they spray silver paint into their mouths, staining their faces in moments before a kamikaze act of self-sacrifice.

While the white skinned people live above the dust and desiccation of utter poverty. In the dust the people are mutated, tumour ridden, desperate and savage. They are coloured, stained, by their environment and the harsh reality of their lives. It’s not a racial statement so much as one of cultural distance and separation.

When water comes, it is a sharp contrast to the glaring heat of the desert. The water that falls from the giving hand of Immortan Joe creates a shadow that the people clamour for. The cool darkness of shade means survival and life.

This is contrasted later when Imperator Furiosa, Max and their group pass through a swamp at night. The sky is a black-blue, the water is poisonous and glimmers like an oil spill. Only black crows fly in the night sky. The silhouettes of birds and the people, who are eerily reminiscent of the  Landstrider creatures in The Dark Crystal as they pick their way like grotesque black flamingos across the poisonous pools, add to the complete alienness of the scene.

What happened to the Landstriders really disturbed me as a kid

The colours of the landscape are the perfect backdrop to the bright colours of the explosions and fires that are so much a part of the film. Vehicles explode, flamethrowers jet orange and yellow rainbows of fire into the air. The warboys use flares to signal each other. Not flares of fire and light, but explosive paint-bombs that create flak-like puffs of colour in the desert sky. Blue and red, strong colours that call for action and add another layer to the visual experience.

The palette of fire and desert goes into a whole other place when the epic car chase goes into a catastrophic sandstorm. The explosions against the turbulent background of massive tornadoes of swirling dust. There are flashes of clear sky which just add to the contrasts. Red and orange and yellow. It’s a fruit basket of fire and writhing energy.

People are cast in their own colours, Max blends in with the landscape, faded khaki shirt, heavy black leather jacket, trousers and boots. His face is stained and earthen. Charlize Theron has said she started her filming day by rolling in the dust to get the right look. Furiosa wears black grease in a band across her forehead. That and the dull metal of her artificial arm suggests she is no longer human. A cyborg, with a mechanical arm and a brain that has moved beyond being human. Her colours are the colours of a machine.

The wives of Imortan come in a range of colours, milk white and blonde, dark skinned, red-headed, each are beautiful in their own way. They wear bridal white. Muslin wrappings that mark them as pure and innocent. Vestigal virgins who will be the mothers of the new generation of warlords.

Colour is exceptionally important in a visual medium. Like the painting that sold for millions – blue and yellow. Two colours which feature in a wide range of the palette used in Fury Road. I’m still not sure if the untitled painting is art, but the film… that I would say is worth millions.

Wizards (1977)

Wizards (1977)  Director/Screenplay/Producer – Ralph Bakshi,

An illuminating history bearing on the everlasting struggle for world supremacy between the powers of Technology and Magic.

PLOT: It is two million years after civilisation has been devastated by a nuclear holocaust. The radiation has caused races of elves, dwarves and fairies to mutate. In the elvish kingdom of Morganthar, a queen gives birth to two sons who are psychic opposites of one another – the charming Avatar and the vile Blackwolf. Both become powerful wizards. Avatar becomes the ruler of Morganthar but Blackwolf reviles his name and chooses self-exile in the kingdom of Scortch, a nuclear wasteland. There he rallies the mutants and demons of the underworld under him, although they lack the volition and unison to be an army. However, after researching into history, Blackwolf discovers all about weapons of war and finds that he can unite the troops together around old film footage of Adolf Hitler. 

Voices:

Bob Holt – Avatar, an old but powerful wizard

Jesse Welles – Elinore, Avatar’s love interest

Richard Romanus – Weehawk, a noble elf warrior

David Proval – Necron 99/Peace, Blackwolf’s former minion. He is renamed Peace by Avatar.

Steve Gravers – Blackwolf, Avatar’s evil brother

James Connell – President

Mark Hamill – Sean, king of the mountain fairies

Susan Tyrrell – Narrator (uncredited)

Ralph Bakshi – Fritz/Lardbottom/Stormtrooper (uncredited)

Angelo Grisanti – Larry the Lizard (uncredited)

 

Ralph Bakshi is one of cinema history’s most tragic figures. Certainly the most tragic in animation. By which I mean that the financial success of his films fell short of his vision and genius for storytelling.

With grand vision hampered by a far less grand execution, projects like his Lord of the Rings film remain as cult-classics because of the vastness of the vison (and the vastness of the vision of the source material) that trying to make one film to encompass it all was impossible. Sir Peter Jackson made 6 films to tell the same story.

For me, Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards (1977) remains as the pinnacle of his creativity. An original story, a fantastic mashup of fantasy, science fiction, post-apocalyptic adventure and ultimately, a war film.

The film opens with Susan Tyrell’s droning voice over. She was so unimpressed with the project that she asked to not be included on the film’s credits. However, her timelessly aged voice has always been one of the great features of the film and she has regretted her request ever since.

Some reviewers speak ill of Ms Tyrell’s voice over. To me it encompasses everything that the film is about. It’s a voice of an ancient Gaia – the Mother Earth spirit. A world that has been torn and burned and ravaged. Has been engulfed in an epic firestorm of nuclear weapons and has healed over millions of years. A world with scars and the weight of billions of years. That is the voice of Susan Tyrell. It is eerie, and ancient and spine-tinglingly good.

The soundtrack varies from 70’s guitar wa-waah to haunting electronic synth. It feels like a 1970’s rock opera overture through most of it. The overall sense of the music is a lyrical jazz, experimental rock n’ roll fusion.

Fox Studios refused Bakshi’s request for further funding, and the DIY nature of much of the animation is part of its unique charm. The rotoscoped battle scenes from classic films looked really good, so Bakshi decided there was no need to animate them further. He paid for the additional footage and animation out of his own pocket when the studio money ran out. George Lucas also asked for more money for Star Wars around the same time (they refused his request too).

Famous artists like Ian Miller contributed backdrop scenes, particularly for Black Wolf’s city and the more pastoral Montegar.

Historical allegory is the most important theme of this film. Twenty-five minutes in and the stage has been set with a direct metaphor for Nazi Germany’s rise in Nationalism and rebuilding of their war-machine in the 1930’s.

The chilling part is the scene where the elf veteran of the previous wars is chuckling about what useless troops Blackwolf has. His confidence is matched by his fellow troops, though the young soldier who has no experience is less than convinced. The scene that follows is one of the grimmest ever put to animation. It cements Wizards position as an adult animated film, not a family-friendly movie that you could let your kids watch.

Wizards has rightly become a cult classic. The initial box-office taking was small, but this is a film that is just as relevant now as it was 25 years ago.

Rating: #3 in my Top Five Films of All Time

 

 

 

Meanwhile across town…

In an experiment to reduce speeding in a town, a consultant put up signs that advised motorists that each month, a random driver recorded as driving at the speed limit would receive a $500 cash prize. The average speed of the road users dropped to the posted speed limit overnight.

The message there is that we respond better to positive reinforcement and incentives.

So while things are irritating in one aspect, other things are far more positive.

Paper Road Press – the publisher of Engines of Empathy, is having a giveaway of the book later this week on Goodreads.

They are also keen to support the new graphic novel project I am working on in conjunction with KC Bailey – artist extraordinaire. Given the workload for Paper Road right now, publishing a graphic novel is not within their capacity.

The other exciting news around the graphic novel project is that we may have a publisher who will take on the publishing side of things (as publishers do). That will mean book store distribution, full colour copies of the graphic novel and other delightful things.

No guarantees on that yet of course. But it’s looking like it might possibly could happen.

Severed Press have contracted me to write two marine thriller novellas.

I’m working on a kid’s book project with another company.

I’ve got some short stories out now, or coming out this year.

My new job is good.

Mad Max: Fury Road starts on Thursday. I shall see it. Several times.

Barely Audible

Listen to many, speak to a few.

~ William Shakespeare

 Well it’s Permuted Press royalty statement time again. The sales figures are as expected across the books I have with them. The thing that caught my eye was that there is no listing for the audiobook editions of Tankbread. The audio book rights were part of the original contract, signed over to Permuted. Some books get made into audio, but I think that has dried up a lot since Amazon took over Audible.

I queried this lack of reporting and got the following response:

The absence of Tankbread sales on your statement is due to the specifics of the agreement Permuted made with Audible for the license of those rights.  In essentials, Audible paid a large lump sum for the sale of several titles, (which were applied immediately to said titles: I can send you a statement when it was paid if you would like), under a 7 year royalty free period. It was estimated that most of the licensed titles would not earn out from this advance in less than 7 years if it had been applied as a regular advance/earn-out circumstance.  After this period, all sales are reported and paid normally.

So it’s not the contract I signed. It’s the contract Permuted Press signed. I do recall getting a royalty payment (credit against advance) for the audio book. I got the same thing when they sold the foreign language rights for a French, Italian and German edition too. The royalty rate is based on the print edition – so the amount credited to me is bugger all. I’m still have over $700 of advance to earn back (remaining advance on 6 books).

I can be relieved that for once it’s not just me that’s getting screwed, oh wait, yes it is. Like the Human Centipede, I’m at the end of a line of shit that gets less palatable once everyone further up the chain has had their chew on it.

If I had killed the narrator instead of having him produce an audio book, I would have gotten less than 7 years.

What is more alarming is that after my post about not being able to get the rights to my books back from Permuted, because “They didn’t want to set a precedent…” I was contacted by several ex-Permuted authors who also requested they be released from their contracts. All of them were given their rights back, no problem, no charge. Which means when it comes to my books, the precedent has already been set, with some minor variations:

I don’t know if those other authors had their foreign language rights sold
I don’t know if those other authors were “this close” to a film rights optioning deal for their book.

The frustrating thing is that the movie deal didn’t go ahead. Even if it had, it might have taken years, if it was ever made at all.

But, now (and this is the ironic bit) like the old man in Tankbread 3 who 200 years after the apocalypse still clutches the winning lottery ticket that scored right before the shit hit the fan – they are going to hang on to the rights in an apparent just in case hope that lightning will strike where there was only a forecast of possible cloud previously.

Assholed By Facebook

Facebook and the Puritans are continuing to ensure that your moral outrage is given all the power and encouragement it needs. By sharing a post from Go Topless.org which supported women’s rights to breastfeed (seriously, why is this not normal and accepted and just you know, biological?) I have been assholed by Facebook. Suddenly my account is suspended. Obviously some incredibly uptight assholes decided that I had rent the moral fabric of our society and WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN? So they reported my shared post in numbers too big to ignore.

So I’m off Facebook. No discussion. No trial by jury. Just a – you’re out cos we don’t like people who support people who do normal things. Boobs make us uncomfortable.

So if you want me, I’m on Twitter @paul_mannering and of course you can follow this blog.

Yeah, I could make a new profile and start building up to the 4700 “friends” and followers I had on Facebook – but do I really want to stick my dick into that rat infested sewer pipe twice?

Max To The Max

The Nightrider. That is his name… the Nightrider… Remember him when you look at the night sky!

~ Toecutter “Mad Max”

HP Lovecraft was plagued by aggressive lint on his suit jackets.

In the small town where I was born and raised, on a dark and mountainous coast that would have made H.P. Lovecraft uneasy, we had one movie theatre, The Mayfair. Films were shown on Fridays and Saturdays each week, by the next week, it would be something else.

The place was old with leather seats and sculpted plaster sconces that spoke of a grander time.

The old theatre was my favourite place in the entire world. We didn’t have a TV, so films were a speedball directly into my eyeball and fevered imagination. It was here I walked out of The Wizard Of Oz and it stands as the one film I have never seen, and never will. Here’s why.

In August, 1977 we were living on a small farm, under the shadow of a mountain range, between the mountains and the sea. It was an alluvial flood plain, which meant that if there was a market for river smoothed grey rocks, we would have lived like kings. Most of the paddocks were more rocks than dirt and I remember spending many long hours loading them onto the tractor trailer and dumping them along a fenceline.

Our farm looked like this – but with more grass

 

Early one morning that August, we were hit by a storm. Due to the shape of the land the wind would come down off the mountain like an X-Games skateboarder and we were at the bottom of the slope. Gusts would come through and tear roofs of houses, rip trees out of the ground, and 7 years later another storm of the same variety it tied 1 inch thick angle iron into knots.

Our car was crushed, trees came down on the house, and we spent weeks clearing fallen trees. I was five years old and it was my first experience with what we would now call PTSD.

A year or so later, we went to see The Wizard of Oz at the local movie theatre. They often played kids movies in matinee sessions. I vaguely remember getting to the bit where the tornado hit, and then I was outside. I have no idea what the rest of the film is about. I know there was a girl and red-shoes and witches and a road. I still can’t watch it.

The only other film that freaked me out as a child was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – and that was just the scene where they put the bug in Chekov’s ear. I went to the bathroom for that bit and then loved the rest of the movie.

The idea of restricted films was of course something we were in awe of as kids. R13 – cool… R16 ooohh… R18? What the hell could qualify for an R18 rating? Discussion suggested in a movie with an R18 rating, people actually died.

The gave this movie an R18 rating because people died in it!

Along with the usual kids fare, I saw all three Star Wars movies in that theatre. The resounding shock I felt when Luke Skywalker’s parentage was announced resonates with me still. One of the great frustrations was when we were away the one weekend that the Mayfair was showing Battletruck, the Kiwi version of a Mad Max dystopian action movie.

My love affair with all things apocalyptic really started with that film. Having missed it the first time around, I got into see Mad Max instead. Then Mad Max 2 and later, in a much larger movie house in Christchurch, Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome.

What is it about the Mad Max franchise that completes me? I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps it is the fact that Max was never a good man. He was a driven, angry, killer. In D&D terms, his alignment was Chaotic Neutral. He looked out for himself and did what he had to, just to survive.

The insurance excess on this is going to be killer…

 

Sometimes he would do good, other times he would do evil – always looking out for number one and always surviving. I guess I felt a connection with his sheer grit and grimness. This was a man who knew pain. He knew misery and he kept going.

It’s not some boyish hero fantasy, I had shit going on that left me with an intense feeling of connection with the tortured soul of Max.

With Mad Max: Fury Road finally coming to theatres in 9 days’ time, I feel that I’m in a different place now. Calmer, less tortured and still completely mad for post-apocalyptic fiction. George Miller has an eye for the grand. His visions of barbaric wastelands have always been unlike anyone else.

The epic scale of the madness of the land and the people who have become savage and primitive in it, has always required a character like Max. If you fight fire with fire, you fight insanity with madness.

How You Do It

There was a guy I used to know, a fellow nursing student, who wore a T-shirt that said:

“Nookie; Just Did It.”

I think he graduated.

I’ve been working with an established Australian publisher to formulate a deal for writing some books. Severed Press expressed interest in hearing proposals, so I wrote a bunch of ideas based on current, unpublished original WIP’s I have.

They rejected all of them except one that they wanted to change quite a bit. Further discussion gave more clarity around what for them would be a sweet spot in my creative contributions to their publishing empire.

So today, I signed a two book deal for two novellas to start with, two different stories of up to 50,000 words.

It’s a great place to start a new relationship with a publisher, especially one that has a good reputation among indie-horror fans. They have some great niche market targets, beyond the common post-apocalyptic (which they also do) and into specific sub-genre real-world horror. Novellas are quick to write and are a good way to test the audience waters. If they fly, then I’m in a good position to write longer books and have a new fan-base to develop.

If you want to see what they are doing, check out www.severedpress.com

The first book is entitled “Hell’s Teeth” and the second is “EAT.” While neither contains zombies, you can be sure it’s going to be slick, gory and action-packed adventure (fun for the whole family!)

I was asked by a fellow writers group member on Facebook “How did you do it?”

That’s a really challenging question to answer. Do I go back to how my parents first met, fell in love, married, had kids and all the other factors that made me who I am? An accurate answer would have to start there.

A concise one however is that you just have to work at it (along with your day job, your study, your family, and your social life). You just have to make time and write and write and write. Then you have to seek out publishers that publish exactly what you are writing. Self-publish if you prefer. Work on building your audience (and that’s a whole other conversation) and always be seeking opportunities to push yourself.

Not that that is a guarantee of success, commercial, critical or otherwise. Hard work is like buying a lottery ticket. It won’t guarantee you win, but it sure improves your chances (slightly).

The other advice I would give my fellow group member, keep writing. Keep submitting stories. Write in a range of genres, find what works for you. Write short stories, novels, novellas, screenplays, audio plays, poetry, plays, and non-fiction (if that is your thing). Blog and read widely. Read and write critically – why does your favourite (successful) author do so well? What is it about the way they use the same words that captures you? What do you wince over in the same book?

Ultimately, you can be Nike and Just Do It, or you can be the Nookie guy, and say “I just did it.”

Live In Your World, Get Sued In Ours

“The term `holistic’ refers to my conviction that what we are concerned with here is the fundamental interconnectedness of all things…I see the solution to each problem as being detectable in the pattern and web of the whole.” 

~Douglas Adams Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

There has been a range of comments and responses to the new branding Permuted Press has released today.

Previously this was been the Permuted Press logo with the tag line, “Enjoy the Apocalypse.”

Today Permuted have released a new logo and tag line. The prize for the winning tag line was a new Apple watch.

 

I like the new logo and I agree with the information that came out with the announcement, that this new logo and slogan is:

“…A symbolic move toward our exploration of different genres, like Sci-Fi, dark and urban fantasy, and even young adult books. We’re happy to finally share the visualization of those changes with you! Our new slogan, submitted by one of our own authors, Michael Westen, represents Permuted’s sense of community and a commitment to providing an exciting and varied world of literature from talented writers. It embodies Permuted’s mission to make every effort to publish the type of books that readers are hungry for.

We invite you to “live in your world, and escape into ours.”

It certainly does embrace their move into a wider genre of genre fiction, of course where that leaves authors with nine-book zombie epic deals, is unclear – but the new look is great!

Of course, it’s awfully close to Sony’s PlayStation 2 logo and slogan. I sincerely hope it doesn’t become a situation of Sony saying, “Live in your world, get sued in ours.”

It seems to be another symptom of the uncertainty – and cold-blooded (but necessary) Return On Investment business model.

Buy a successful independent publisher who has become a key player in a niche market.
Buy all the books and corner the market
Find market is mature and not meeting investor expectations on returns.
Stop producing paperbacks for many of the authors you have taken on.
Still not meeting investor expectations on returns…?
Shed a bunch of the authors you have taken on in the last 12 months.
Expand into other genres. Wider offerings, more chances of income… amirite?
Create a new logo and branding to match the new direction – pray you don’t get sued by one of the largest corporations on the planet.
Buy up books from a range of wider-genre authors
Profit…?

Investors are only interested in one thing. A return on their investment.

Publishing is like prostitution, without the cuddling afterwards. So investors in the publishing industry will have an expectation of a return. Just what that return is in dollar terms, I don’t know. But it has to be enough to make them comfortable that they have made a wise investment. Albeit a risky one.

The main casualty in all this is the authors who have been published by Permuted Press before. The back catalog people who get lost in the new author parade. The successful authors have cracked the egg of gaining a loyal following, there are many strategies for this – but no guarantees. It’s a mix of hard work and luck. There is no other explanation for it when we live in a world where E.L James (author of 50 Shades of Grey) is writing a “How To Write” book…

Crayons not included. 

When I broached the idea of hypothetically getting the rights to Tankbread back because there were other publishers interested. The message from Permuted to me was pretty straight-forward. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. At least, not with any of the books I have under contract to them. Tankbread, with the foreign language editions, is a particularly tricky one. But they actual statement was they don’t want to create a precedent for authors breaking their contracts.

But, didn’t they stop producing print copies of a bunch of authors’ books and then charge them a fee when they wanted out of the entire deal?

Well yes, but…

And didn’t they cancel the contracts on a bunch more after that?

Well yes, but…

So, Permuted cancelling a contract or changing the way they deliver a book is okay, but if an author wants to walk away with their books and say, self-publish, that is verbotten?

Well yes, but….

 

Not Enjoying The Apocalypse

“When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?”

~  Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

My growing sense of unease is related to things I cannot control. Things like the publishing industry and one of the two publishers through which, I am connected to it.

There was a lot of angry words said about Permuted Press, during what we now refer to as “The Kerfuffle.” Last year, Permuted announced they would be cancelling the print version of many books. Affected authors got upset. Some authors then announced they were taking their toys out of the sandpit and going home. Permuted then did something really dumb. They said anyone who leaves, may have certain costs (cover art, editing etc.) charged to them to leave their contracts. That was when people got really angry.

The outrage was exactly like this

This was followed a few months later by Kerfuffle 2.0. This was when Permuted Press (whose new owners had expanded the stable of authors to over 200) realized that there wasn’t a lot of money in buying up every single book that crossed their desks. They shed a few (I don’t know how many – but the number of members of the Permuted Press Authors group on Facebook dropped by about 30).  A letter was sent to everyone, some said your books will not be published by us, we are cancelling the contract, and others said, you’re good. Carry on.

This time they did it right. At least they didn’t charge anyone recovery costs for money invested in their titles.

Now we are facing Kerfuffle 3.0.

This one is simpler, subtler, and scares me most.

I am not a Permuted Press bestseller. I have been personally told (twice now) that the changes enacted (K1 and K2) would not have any effect on my books with Permuted. So, when the first kerfuffle blew up, I defended them. I got in to some stupid online fights over it. Got hassled and slapped down by professional assholes like Brian Keene (great writer, angry, angry human being).

I’m pretty sure the only reason they keep me on the books is because they almost, almost sold the movie rights to Tankbread. To a major Hollywood producer. It didn’t happen, but it was really close.

Maybe because of that, but also maybe because they like my books. Sure they don’t sell (they don’t sell much at all), but they keep me around. Sometimes I feel like one of those old cons in the prison movies. The trustee who is losing his teeth, his hair, and his marbles. They let him wander around because, hey he’s loyal, he’s harmless and he still thinks Truman is president.

This mean’s I’ve stood up when I believed that Permuted were still doing the right thing, even if it meant people were feeling hard done by on their contracts and the terms imposed on breaking them. I didn’t stand up, but I didn’t raise a fuss when the second round of changes came along. But I had a bad feeling.

In 2014, Permuted Press sold 250,000 books. They are not a company going under, as many of the Kerfuffle 1.0 sad puppies brigade claimed. If they’re taking the lion’s share of the money they are charging (and boy do they charge) for books – then they’re probably doing okay.

I wondered what the fuck they were doing when they started bringing in so many new authors. The rest of us felt (correctly) that the meagre attention being paid to the rest of us for promotion and marketing was being further eroded. There were staffing changes – people in key positions changed and I’m still not sure how many people there are in the actual office. It feels like their marketing department is possibly a fax machine that hasn’t been switched on since 2004. The people I deal with at Permuted are nice. They respond to emails, they tell me what I need to know.

I’m not sure what a full marketing team giving a month’s worth of attention to the Tankbread series would do for sales anyway. I think probably nothing. The market for zombie fiction is (and this is the word I heard used today) ‘mature.’

Zombies in their current guise are fully ingrained in western pop-culture. We have The Walking Dead, we have Fear The Walking Dead, we have Z-Nation, we have dozens of movies and thousands of novels, comics, and other media about zombies.

Vampires were probably a mature genre item by the time Max Schreck appeared in Nosfteratu. But we still see variants on the vampire myth (maybe because it’s more about sex than anything else). Mature markets aren’t dead. They aren’t a guaranteed way to lose money – but they are no longer the fresh and virgin territory for the mass marketing they once were.

The Big Six  Five (who may well be the Big Three by now) in publishing know more about genre markets than anyone. Which brings me to Kerfuffle 3.0

In a nutshell, Permuted Press “lost” their distribution partner and have been negotiating with Simon and Schuster for a replacement distribution arrangement. This distribution partnership has always been focused on the Permuted Platinum titles. Those are the best sellers, which the company then invests in producing hardback and paperback copies of those titles for distribution to chain stores like Barnes and Noble, and other bookstores across the USA.

I don’t know how the previous deal was lost. It probably involved money – or maybe it’s just that you know, the market for zombies is mature now, and their distributors can’t place hundreds of copies of titles that sold well in ebook format, into brick and mortar stores. Either way Permuted is currently without a distributor. They are looking for another one, and S&S aren’t interested in the way Permuted wanted them to be. So we were told today that Permuted will be restructuring the Platinum (best sellers in bookstores via distributor model) over the summer.

Again, not my problem, my books aren’t Platinum sellers anyway. But y’know… there’s more at stake here.

There is the issue that Permuted don’t seem to have a plan, or a strategy, or a solution. Not just to their sudden lack of distributor, but to a whole bunch of things. There’s no apparent marketing. There’s no support for the back catalog. There’s no stake in the ground for Permuted authors to feel that we know where we stand. Summer is a really uncertain term. I’m guessing it means the northern hemisphere summer, but that could be three months, four, maybe six before anything is actually announced to those who really need to know.

Given that twice now (in the last 12 months) there have been situations where a lot of authors (some quite successful) were suddenly told that the way their product was being sold or produced would be changed (or just dropped from the catalog) it’s small wonder that many of us are uneasy.

There are other things.

Post Hill Press and Winlock Press. Both are Permuted Press imprints, or at least publishing ventures owned by the same investors. These other print-brands specialize in different genres (Winlock publishes apocalyptic fiction as well as everything else). Post Hill publishes mainstream fiction and non-fiction.

They are apparently doing very well. So suddenly, Permuted Press is looking to rebrand. They did this with a request for people to provide them with a new tagline to replace the “Enjoy the Apocalypse!”

I have a mug like this. They are rare and precious – unless you bought one.

tag which focused on their main source of material – apocalyptic fiction. Now they want to expand into other genres, sci-fi, fantasy, YA… sure they’ll keep zombies around… I mean the market is mature… and Truman’s still president…

The winning replacement tagline was apparently provided by a Permuted Press author – they win an Apple Watch. Irony is Apple watches are worth more than I have made from Permuted book sales ever (I’ve been paid advances, but still haven’t earned out). It’s akin to being told you’re being retired and having someone else get your gold watch.

So where am I at now?

Cover is still being finalised

I’m facing an uncertain future. I have a book coming out from Permuted next month, called, Dead! Dead! Dead! 

The cover draft looks cool. They just ran with my simple idea and it’ll do. It’s not a Tankbread story, though I have got a contract with them for Tankbread 4.

Except, when I told Michael (President) that the manuscript wasn’t going to be ready by the April deadline we had agreed to last year, he said that was okay, it wasn’t on their release list at the moment anyway.

Oh… good?

I’m happy with the new book. It is apocalyptic fiction. But it was co-written with US Army and National Guard veteran, Bill Ball. So the extensive military elements in the book are accurate and it might actually have a market. There is no contract for a book 2 in that series. Though I have ideas, and a title. Bill would definitely be on board for a sequel. D!D!D! is his baby as much as it is mine. Permuted have provided me with one of the best editors in the business, for which I am grateful. Working with Jon has always been a real education for every book they have published of mine.

But unease… I have a lot of other writing irons in the fire. I think we all do. There is the sequel to Engines of Empathy (which won a Best Novel award this year) to be published by my other publisher. There are multiple short-stories coming out and there are other novels. Sci-Fi, Crime-Thrillers, YA, and I’m even working on a paranormal romance. I’m probably going to self-publish them. To do that I will need to save up for paying a professional editor. I know a few and I hope I can afford them.

EDIT: Permuted Press reported ‘delivery’ of 250,000 titles in 2014. This includes free downloads, which are only “sales” if you are a journalist for Forbes.

So the titles are getting out there, but there’s no certainty around how fiscally successful the company is.

 

Addendum: This is an edited version of the post Michael Wilson (President of Permuted Press) made to the Permuted Press authors Facebook group, 18 April, 2015.

Emphasis added.

In late February, we met in Berkeley, CA, with our distributor to discuss sales strategy for Fall/Winter 2015…The discussions didn’t go so well. Shortly after returning from that trip, the mutual decision was made to part ways with our distributor, Ingram Publisher Services…Shortly thereafter we received a fantastic offer from Simon and Schuster to distribute Post Hill Press.

When we brought Permuted to the table [Simon and Schuster] simply weren’t interested.

Discussions didn’t progress for Permuted Platinum the way they did for our other publishing company, Post Hill.

Permuted’s books weren’t generating enough backlist sales to make a transition of the entire catalog worthwhile.

Coul we instead continue with our separated Permuted / Permuted Platinum model? The powers that be at S&S agreed to do so.

[Simon & Schuster] would distribute Permuted Platinum, but we had to bring even more than our previous A-game.

We are shifting Permuted Platinum’s strategy.

We’ve not settled on a strategy just yet, but we’re considering a lot of things.

I realize that change like this gives the impression of instability, but that’s genuinely not the case.

Sales are down

Permuted isn’t in the business to sell 10 books at day at $2.99 a piece

At the end of the day, if that’s all the genre is capable of producing, then so be it I suppose.

TL;DR: Platinum is moving distribution to Simon and Schuster and will be restructured later this summer. Permuted continues to morph also to work within either the confines or abundance of revenues as the case may be.

Self Publishing success is achievable – apparently.