Testing Times – Writing for the Web

It was a while ago I decided that I’d have to test the digital waters.

At present a few of my books are up there on the web. I’ve the first six or so titles available through the HarperCollins imprint Avon Books in the US, and the more recent books are all on the internet as well. However, the bulk of my series isn’t up there yet, and there are good financial reasons for that.

I’m a firm believer in the “No one but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money” class of authors. If I’m going to think up a good plot, spend days or months writing it down, and miss out on little pleasures like holidays and a life generally, I want to be paid something for my effort.

A few years ago my last publisher demanded all digital rights for free. I wasn’t keen, oddly enough.

For me, the best guarantee that I’ll earn something at some future date is the fact that a publisher is prepared to defray some of my up-front costs – ie, pay me.

Publishers do perform a useful purpose.

They have the ability to see a possible bestseller. The mere fact that a publisher has taken on a book is an indication that the book is of a reasonable quality. Then, publishers edit, copyedit, re-edit and proof read every book that they publish. You may still find the odd typo, but generally they do a good job. A publisher’s label on a jacket is a sign of quality, no matter what indie and self-published authors assert. A book that is edited and copyedited and then published will not have had the critical eye of an industry professional tearing it apart, and thus may (it’s not definite, but it’s pretty much certain) be far poorer than a published book.

City of Fiends – time you pre-ordered your copy now. Available in less than a month now!

But even if the author gets a publishing contract, he or she still gets a pretty bad deal. My last publishers agreed a punitive rate of discount which hurt me badly (and is the reason why I was forced to leave their stable). After all, when a publisher pays an advance, it is only an interest-free loan which has to be paid back (so many people don’t get that: advances are not a gift or salary, they must be repaid out of royalties).

But now we don’t need publishers. We have Kindle. The internet is invigorating. It’s open, freeing, liberating, exciting. That’s what I see all about me. Excitement. Liberation. Freedom.

Excuse me.

You look at those words again, and apply them to your income. “Exciting” and “liberating” tend to have unpleasant connotations when they refer to your own money. It begins to sound like that appalling cliché about every horrible event in your life being an “opportunity”. No. Horrible things happen. They are not opportunities, they are often bloody disasters. I know this. I’ve lived through two recessions that have destroyed my livelihood. They weren’t soul-inspiring events.

The fact is, whether you are employed or self-employed, you crave a little stability. A minimum income level, perhaps.

For writers, there has never been any security. We write and hope that a fickle audience will be teased into buying. Most writers have suffered from appalling incomes for many years. Over three quarters earned less than the national average wage when the Society of Authors last checked. That was before the advent of Kindle, Googlebooks etc.

But the internet is here to stay. There is no getting away from that.

And so, I have decided to bite the bullet and see how my own works will fare. It necessarily means a change in the way that I work, because I must learn how to market and irritate the hell out of people with my scribblings about my books. Well, ideally not irritate them, but you know what I mean – there is a fine balance between determinedly flogging your wares and putting off any readers who might otherwise have been excitedly running to the computer to order the latest.

Whereas in the past I spent all the year planning, thinking and plotting about new stories, now I have to spend much more time in marketing and selling them. It’ll reduce the number of stories I can write. It’s a shame, but it is inevitable. I have to sell them to survive.

What is the best way of selling books? Well, I’ve decided that I’ll start with short stories. Heck, they’re easy. A short read, and I think that a single short of 7-8,000 words should be worth a pound. It’s a diversion for an hour or two, and I guess 50 pennies per hour should be fair payment.

Then, I’ve a collection of four stories that are all Baldwin/Puttock tales and which have been published over some years. They all seem to be begging to be lumped together, so I thought that all together I could sell them for £2.99, which again is pretty cheap for about eight hours of entertainment.

The cover for my new collection of short stories – to be released shortly (as soon as I figure out how to get it up on Kindle!)

Of course, if these go well, I will be looking at my modern thriller. That, and an associated short story, could be sold on the internet too. I guess the thriller would be a good buy at £4.99, the short for another 99 pennies.

It’s not a precise science, of course. Many people will think that I’m charging far too much. I recently had an enthusiastic fool try to recommend that I put all my books on the web for free, and hope that readers will read my work and then come back and pay me something for it. Somehow I don’t think he’d like his own income to depend upon others coming back to pay him from goodwill.

I am not that kind of blockhead.

However, while some folks think I’m overpricing, I have to consider several factors. One, that I am looking at about a year of solid work for all the above stories. I don’t see why I should give away my time and labour for free. Second, other people have designed covers etc. I’ve already had to pay them for their work – and it’s good work, too, as you can see from the short story cover. They are worth their pay, just as I am.

So, is 99 pennies too much for a short story? Is £4.99 too much for a novel? Or are they too little?

I don’t know, in short. But it’s going to be interesting to find out!

Tagged: authors, blogosphere, books, crime writing, Michael Jecks, novelist, publishing, writing