The Future of Publishing: a Conversation With Seamus Cooper

I recently sat down with my alter ego Seamus Cooper for a wide-ranging conversation about our careers and the future of publishing.  Here's the transcript.

Brendan Halpin: So, Seamus. We haven't heard from you in a while.  Why'd you stop blogging?

Seamus Cooper: Nobody was reading it.  Also, once I was outed as your pseudonym, it got less fun.

BH: Ah. That was during the whole Night Shade Books debacle.  How'd that work out?

SC: Well, they issued an apology, and then, when the next royalty statement was due, they delivered one only after our agent asked for it, and it was late and inaccurate.  And they still haven't paid me.

BH: Wow. Really?  You'd think they'd make an effort to stay on top of stuff like this.  Are they evil, or just incompetent?

SC: You know, I've thought about this a lot, and I've decided that their intentions don't matter at all.  The bottom line is that, at least in their dealings with me, they do not run the money side of their business with even a modicum of professionalism.  Whether they mean to do the right thing or not is between them and their consciences.  The bottom line is that with these guys, I have to make quite a ruckus to get paid.  That whole internet firestorm of a year or so ago was about 400 bucks. No joke.  If their sales figures are accurate for this year, we're talking about a similar amount.

BH: So what now? Do you have other projects in the works?

SC: I've got three books in progress right now.  But I kind of don't know what to do with them.

BH: Why's that?

SC: Well.  It's a lot of work to find the right home for the kind of stuff I do. I'm not confident a big publisher would want it, and I'm a little gunshy about working with small publishers again.

BH: So why not just go direct to Kindle and Nook?  Isn't that the wave of the future?

SC: Maybe.  I think you can do that with speculative fiction a little more easily than you can with the stuff you write.

BH: Why?

SC: Because horror-science fiction-fantasy readers tend to be early tech adopters, they tend to evangelize for their favorite stuff, and, I think most importantly, they get together and see each other a lot.  At old school RPG games and conventions and comic book stores and stuff like this.  After all, one face-to-face recommendation is worth at least three online reviews.

BH: Where'd you get that statistic?  Through rigorous research?

SC: No. I pulled it out of my butt. Which I guess qualifies me to be a social media guru. Or the next Seth Godin.

BH: God, that guy is annoying.

SC: I know.  I have no idea why people repeat every word he says like he heard it from the lips of God himself.

BH: Do you believe in God?

SC: It's just an expression. Anyway, so I have some concerns about the direct-to-ebook model.

BH: Why?  It's the wave of the future, blah blah blah!

SC: Maybe.  But without the gatekeeper, how do you make your work stand out?  If nobody's going to see it in a bookstore, how do they hear about it?  All the sudden you have to devote a lot of time to publicity and hustling to make your book stand out.  Which is fine, if that's the way it is, but I'm not sure I currently have time to do that well.

BH: But isn't it awesome that you can reach readers directly without having a bunch of douchebags who don't pay you standing in the middle?

SC: Yes and no. Because those douchebags do things like hire editors and cover artists.

BH: Do they pay them on time?

SC: I'm not privy to that information. But my point is that with MALL OF CTHULHU, Janna Silverstein's editorial work made it a much better book.  And Scott Altmann's awesome cover made people want to pick it up.  So what do I do? Do I hire a freelance editor?  Will they be as tough on me as they should be if they're working for me rather than the publisher?  If this is the wave of the future, I'm a little concerned about some of the implications.

BH:What are you talking about?  Reach the readers directly and stuff!

SC: Good books are still going to need editors.  So if authors are investing money up front to pay editors and/or cover artists, this process automatically favors people with money.  Same deal with the publicity. If you have to make promoting yourself and your books a part-time job, that's going to favor people who are either young and have no real responsibilities, or people who have a lot of money saved.  None of which applies to you.

BH: Fair enough.

SC: Authors of necessity invest time up front. If you ask them to also invest money up front, you wind up with skewed criteria of who gets published. The person who can afford the best cover art and who has 8 spare hours a day to promote themselves might not be the person who's actually written the best book.

BH: Well, so why not crowdsource the funding with kickstarter or indiegogo or something?  Then you create evangelists and fans, and we're all funding the stuff we want to see, and it's a beautiful world where people of all faiths and ethnicities hold hands in the sunshine and sing!

SC: I think that's a Coke commercial.  Anyway, I'm not convinced about that for books.  It seems to work best for musicians or for people who already have a substantial audience.  By the way, I funded a horror comic on indiegogo that looks cool as hell, and I really hope other people kick in so it gets made.

BH: See! These are great things!  You're evangelizing for a comic book that hasn't been written yet!

SC: Well, look how much money they've raised.  And then, also, what happens when your work inevitably falls short of some people's expectations?  Will they see it as a betrayal?

BH: Wait a minute. You funded a comic book?  But that's my name on the site! 

SC: I stole your credit card.  I can't get one issued in my name.  Probably because I'm fictional.

BH: That is straight up discrimination. They issue credit cards to fictional people all the time!

SC: Whatever.  The point is, I'm not sold on crowdsourcing the funding to hire an editor and an illustrator. But I am thinking about crowdsourcing the editing.

BH: What are you talking about?

SC: Well, if you try to raise funds, you're asking people to contribute on the hope that something good will come of it.  But what if you release chapters of your work in progress on a blog and ask people to comment and tell you what's working and what's not?  That way you build an audience and you get edits, but instead of just a promise, your editors have gotten a free chapter, or, if they follow you all the way to the end, a free book in exchange for their time and energy.

BH: Interesting.  But then your whole book is out there on the internet.  You edit it yourself and sell it as an ebook? 

SC: Right.

BH: But, um, cows, free milk, etc.

SC: Well, it seems to work for some people. I know I'd pay a couple of bucks for the convenience of reading a book in one whole piece on an ereader as opposed to in pieces on a blog.   But also, I need encouragement while I'm writing something--that can come in the form of a sale, but what if it came in the form of feedback on a blog?

BH: I dunno.  I'm skeptical.  Sounds like the kind of project you might start and then never finish. 

SC: I disagree. I think the feedback would sustain me.

BH: But then we're back to the original problem.  You don't have time to go around hustling up interest in your novel. At least not in the kind of sustained way that's going to be really effective.  You've barely got time to write!

SC: And whose fault is that?

BH: Don't get petulant. I'm just saying that we're back to hustling for publicity, only now you're promoting something that doesn't even pay you.

SC:Well, not right away.  And let's face it, "Click on this link and read something" is a much easier sell than "click on this link and give me three bucks."

BH: Fair enough.  I don't know. 

SC: Nobody knows! Nobody knows anything!  So we all just get to try all kinds of crazy crap and see what works!

BH: And then if, by some fluke, your crazy crap works, you get to trot around as a self-important expert explaining why everyone should be just like you.

SC: Nice work if you can get it!

BH: So I'll see you at the next Tools of Change conference.

SC: Or maybe I'll give a TED talk about how great and smart I am!

BH:Can't wait.  So, in the meantime, should we look for any new product from you?

SC: It's on the way. And it would get here a lot sooner if you didn't have bills to pay.  So selfish!

BH: Sigh.