M. R. Bailey

The climate for writers is changing as it is changing for so many other professions.  At least three writers I know believe that we are approaching a tipping point where a sustainable writing career might slip beyond the grasp of many talented and deserving writers.

Contracts written prior to 1994, when Random House modified its contracts to include electronic rights, are subject to interpretation as to whether e-rights are covered.   It is primarily these backlist titles that are the focus of much of the current dispute.  Large publishers’ legal departments see sufficient ambiguity in older contracts to claim the rights advantage before the courts intervene and define these terms for them. While publishers, agents, lawyers and judges argue whether imprecise pre-ebook contract language amounts to legally defined rights, the practical result is denied opportunity for writers.  This is not meant to ignore that the economic downturn and the paradigm shift in technology have also forced publishers into an urgent sprint to develop a business model that works for them.  My focus here is on writers and their ability to continue to create the raw material required by the publishing industries. Uncertainty in publishing leads to risk aversion among all parties, delay, and ultimately a degraded environment for writers whose professional survival is already a marginal existence. Last night, I dreamed I was a polar bear on a small floating patch of rapidly melting ice.  Nothing symbolic there, right?

Are traditional publishing’s aggressive responses to the evolving e-book market threatening the careers of writers who invent, research, and craft original literary fiction?  Probably not in the long-term, yet it seems that way sometimes.

If you haven’t already read it, here is the Authors Guild Dec. 15th Advocacy article, “Random House’s Retroactive Rights Grab,” in response to Random House CEO Markus Dohle’s letter.

Golden Rule

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

or

He who has the gold makes the rules

Publishers are lining up for a high stakes confrontation with writers and agents. Traditional publishers are positioning for expanded control of individual author’s rights, including wrapping e-rights into their traditional print rights contracts. Authors want to share in the revenues produced by e-books at a level that reflects the lower cost of marketing e-books vs. print books. If publishers will not honor this proportionality, then it seems reasonable that authors would want to retain the opportunity to market the e-rights to their books. The Authors Guild sides with the writer. Where will the courts side? Which Golden Rule will guide them? Ultimately, enterprise and economics will decide. In the meantime, we writers have to keep writing, keep finding ways to support ourselves while writing, and keep faith that our work will make a difference.

DISCOVERY of the Day

Melville House Publishing and its informative MobyLives literary blog keep the literary flame burning.  For another perspective on the Random House story, take a look at MobyLives‘ Dec. 16 coverage.

From The Authors Guild:

Amazon Accuses Someone Else of Monopolizing Bookselling

Amazon made it official yesterday, filing a brief in the Google case claiming that someone else might gain a monopoly in bookselling. It seems we’re compelled to state the obvious:

Amazon’s hypocrisy is breathtaking. It dominates online bookselling and the fledgling e-book industry. At this moment it’s trying to cement its control of the e-book industry by routinely selling e-books at a loss. It won’t do that forever, of course. Eventually, when enough readers are locked in to its Kindle, everyone in the industry expects Amazon to squeeze publishers and authors. The results could be devastating for the economics of authorship.

Amazon apparently fears that Google could upend its plans. Amazon needn’t worry, really: this agreement is about out-of-print books. Its lock on the online distribution of in-print books, unfortunately, seems secure.

The settlement would make millions of out-of-print books available to readers again, and Google would get no exclusive rights under the agreement. The agreement opens new markets, and that’s a good thing for readers and authors. It offers to make millions upon millions of out-of-print books available for free online viewing at 16,500 public library buildings and more than 4,000 colleges and universities, and that’s a great thing for readers, students and scholars. The public has an overwhelming interest in having this settlement approved.

(Reprinted with permission of the Authors Guild)

Close the Deal

Anyone who has dealt with an agent, a publisher, or a producer knows that negotiation is part of what makes the writing life possible.  As organizing principles go, this is pretty straightforward. While we have plenty to think about in negotiating representation, publication, and (hopefully) production, one goal should remain clearly in focus: close the deal.

♦

Remember a Few Key Points

Robin Davis Miller, General Counsel of The Authors Guild, offered some advice on contracts and the negotiation process at a seminar in Los Angeles. I have benefitted from her counsel. I hope you benefit, too. Here are a few notes:

• Publishing is a moving target. Change is constant.
• NEVER accept assurances for marketing of your book on the website or anywhere else.  Get it in the contract.
• Avoid the OPTION Clause.  Agents tend to leave it in because it ensures their commission even if you leave your agent and place the book yourself.
• As the author, you deserve to know the publisher’s printing and circulation figures.  Publishers don’t release this information easily.  They fight it.  Remember – by the time they make an offer, they know precisely how many copies of your book they will print.
• Research your agent’s and publisher’s reputation for using sub-rights.  Has the publisher executed for others?  Has your agent executed for other clients?
• Time is your ally.  The more time that an agent or editor or publisher invests in you and your work, the more reluctant they are to let you go.
• Books are a business.  Think and speak from a business point of view.
• Insert an out of print clause anywhere the publisher attempts to punish the author for underperforming sales.
• Always insist on receiving a statement. Have them e-mail it if they are reluctant to invest in postage. How else are you to know they are doing their job?

♦

More Advice

Ernest Bevin (1881-1951), British politician and statesmen, offered:

The first thing to decide before you walk into any negotiation is what to do if the other fellow says no.

Good Times

Just as when the IBM personal computer arrived (1981), Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh with GUI (1984), the venerable Selectric and Selectric II became obsolete, and a universe of entrepreneurial and artistic opportunities opened to writers, the Kindle, Sony Readers, iRex, Lexcycle’s Stanza and other downloadable readers have opened doors to a new world of publishing possibilities. While the major players sort out the e-Publishing landscape, engineer the infrastructure, and build the new e-pub world, we writers are exploring, beta testing, and blazing new entrepreneurial paths … all while continuing to write, write, write. This is a good time to be a writer, don’t you think?

♦

Kindle UPDATE – Kindle vs. B&N Free eReader:  See David Pogue’s PERSONAL TECH column, “New Entry in E-Books a Paper Tiger,” in the August 6th edition of the New York Times.  Barnes & Noble’s new e-reader offers PC access to e-books.  The eReader tablet itself is promised for later.

Do you Kindle? Nicholson Baker does. Check out A New Page - Can the Kindle really improve on the book? here in the August 3 edition of The New Yorker.

UPDATE (27 Aug 09):  Blog in which Nicholson Baker takes questions about the Kindle.

Tuesday 1:40 pm: Pilot-tested Kindle publishing with a short story.  Katey Hoagland runs 1,200 words/seven pages, and seems like the best candidate for a test in which I was prepared to load the file, fail, reload, refine HTML, unload and reload again many times according to almost every blog post I read.  Found Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (DTP) to be intuitive and easy-to-use.

I completed the title, product description, tags, and uploaded the story manuscript (MsWord.doc file/Mac OS X (10.5)/Firefox).  DTP’s conversion tool churned for about 40 seconds and notified me that Katey Hoagland was successfully converted. Reviewed the file, noticed that paragraph indents were uniformly eliminated, but that was the only revision to the manuscript.

DTP Dashboard displayed the message: ‘Publishing Katey Hoagland. Your content is being published. Most titles take between 1 to 2 hours to become buyable.’

Tues. 3:20 pm: Katey Hoagland appears in the Kindle Store online, without product description, but otherwise as expected.

Wed. 9:00 am: DTP Dashboard still displays ‘Publishing Katey Hoagland. Your content is being published…’ message.   As a result, I’m unable to access the file for this upload so that I can learn more about what is happening (or not happening).  Not sure if I should wait longer for DTP to come around or if I should simply repost.   e-Mailed dtp-feedback@amazon.com request for assistance.

Wed. 9:00 pm: Dashboard remains unresponsive.  dtp-feedback@amazon.com just responded and confirmed that my upload is active, they will be adding my product description, and they will follow-up to confirm again in 1-2 business days.

Thurs. 10:30 am: Received e-mail from dtp-feedback@amazon.com confirming active account status, and intention to post product description.

Fri. 07:30 am: Product description displays on listing in Kindle Store.  Dashboard functioning properly.

Big Bangs

In the hyper-paced evolution of consumer technologies, there are few developments that equal the transformative effects of e-publishing.

Traditional publishing is now adapting to the reality of the Kindle, Sony e-reader, iPod Touch, and iPhone, which are being adopted by consumers at a rate not seen since the invention of the wheel. I wasn’t present during that paradigm shift, but it is reasonable to assume that the Mesopotamians in the 5th millenium BC ‘got it’ and didn’t look back wistfully to the old, pre-wheel, pre-personal empowerment days.  Now, once again in humankind’s evolution, we have a better idea that has authors and readers leapfrogging industry.  Publishers have cultivated content and fed readers’ appetites.  But they have become a little too comfortable with the perquisites of the traditional corporate model, like Detroit automakers, the Big Three television networks, and the music industry.  In each case, we the people have found our way to a better idea, a better way.

Now Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is betting on the Kindle as a market maker, and if the rapidly increasing sales of the e-book tablet keep growing at the pace they have in the last year, he may be the man we credit with a Steve Jobs-like vision that changed the way we consume media content.

Heads Up: Prices Falling

Publishers see the change happening, know that their traditional print business model is struggling and have apparently decided to profit from the chaos in the book selling market by charging similar prices for hardcover and e-books. Today at Borders, I overheard a salesperson explaining e-books to a middle-aged couple at the Sony E-Reader display this way.

“E-books are coming down in price to roughly half the cost of a hardcover, from $15 to $17.”

The couple were eager for the convenience offered by the E-Reader and when they heard about the cost-savings on titles, they decided to purchase the Sony.

Maybe I should have intervened and told them about $9.99 titles at Amazon.  You don’t criticize someone’s family when you’re a guest in their living room; and I won’t disrupt Borders’ business when I am in theirs.  The couple are happily curled up on their couch now with Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol on the E-Reader.  Everyone is happy.  As for the pricing, publishers will hang on to their profit margins and will change only when their business infrastructure collapses around them.

Meanwhile, over at Amazon, Jeff Bezos is offering e-books for download to the Kindle for $9.99.  Amazon may lose on the margin in the near term, but it is establishing the $9.99 price point for books much in the same way that Steve Jobs established .99 cents as the single unit price point on iTunes, which is now the worldwide standard. More rapid adoption by more consumers will more than make up the difference.

More significantly to me, e-publishing redefines the business model.  Suddenly, the artist and writer can, if they wish, become their own publishers.  No more expenses like printing, shipping, trucking, warehousing, distribution, freight, fuel.  It’s irresistible and, as Adam Penenberg says in his article “The Evolution of Amazon” in the July/August edition of Fast Company, “it’s irreversible.”   Literary agent Richard Curtis, who is also founder of E-Reads, an independent book publisher, asks,

why would “anybody need a traditional book publisher when you can essentially make Amazon your buyer and your seller in one stroke?”

iPublish

After years of playing by Publishing’s rules – willingly, loyally, and with respect for its professionalism – the time has come to try other approaches to connect with my readers.  I am going to try posting a story or two in Amazon’s Kindle Store and see if I can reconnect with former readers and meet some new readers.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Creative Writing

What is creative writing?  Opening to an idea, following where it leads, exploring it, getting inside it and crafting a way to bring it alive through story.  Creative writing is observing a subject, its strengths, weaknesses, contexts, perceptions and misperceptions about it, wants, needs, identity, senses… the full spectrum of facts. Then writing a story, poem, screenplay, stageplay, or novel in an imaginative way that is characterized by originality and expressiveness.

Why write? Developing an idea into a concept, then into a premise, and then writing about it is Sisyphean, like hauling a wheelbarrow up K2. No one undertakes this lightly. So why do it? Often, the ambition sprouts from a fertile childhood, a sense of otherness from earliest memory, or distinctive experience. Maybe something as simple as an insatiable curiosity to learn and understand. Michael Chabon ( in Imaginary Homelands, which first appeared in Civilization) describes it:

I write from the place I live: in exile.   …    I bear no marks or scars. I haven’t lost anything that isn’t lost by everyone.

And yet here I am – here I have always been, for as long as I can remember knowing anything about myself – feeling like a stranger.

For his entire life, he says he has been engaged in

One search, with a sole objective: a home, a world to call my own.

The Money Myth

Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Samuel Johnson (“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money”) notwithstanding, no writer starts writing for the money.  For most if not all of the writers I know there is never any rumuneration equal to a living wage for the work invested in a novel. “If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write,” said Epictetus.  Novelists write to learn, to understand, to experience, to entertain, to create a world in which to live. That’s pretty much the sum of it.

If I can’t write the final beat of a story, brief, or article, or the last five seconds of a commercial or video, I know that the premise is not yet fully realized. Those concluding seconds, or those cascading syllables leading to a final conclusive sustaining note should resonate.  The end should resolve, summarize and underscore the point.  If those qualities are absent or not sufficiently present, then the foundational work – the premise in most instances – is not done; the ad, video, short story, screenplay or novel is not complete. The piece might move, twitch, even walk, but it won’t fly.

An author-friend published in Glimmertrain.  She described it as a positive experience, the best she had had after years of publishing in newspapers and regionals.  She also credited publication of her story in Glimmertrain with helping her get a good NY agent and three years of promising work on a novel and anthology of short non-fiction. She still submits to the two sisters in Portland, yet the sisters haven’t published her work lately.

A colleague who learned that I had published a novel just shared a short story she’d written about a catastrophe averted. Her writing engages with a voice that is confident, yet doesn’t take itself seriously. She set the tone in the first sentence, kept her contract with the reader, and kept revealing little surprises along the way.  It was good getting to know this new dimension of a person I have come to know slowly, in layers, like a character in a novel.  I suggested that if she had not already done so she take a look at Glimmertrain and consider submitting her story there.

She just stopped by for coffee and said that she had visited www.glimmertrain.com and decided to submit to the sisters in Portland.  Here’s hoping.

UPDATE:  31 August 2009

My story, “Robert’s Rules of Order,” did not win, place, or show. Neither did my friend’s story. Eager to read the winning entries, discover some new writers, and learn what worked for the judges. Onward.