The Freedom to Write

By Karen McCullough

I’m writing this on July 4th, the day the U.S. celebrates as Independence Day, which started me meditating on freedom and what that means to an author. There are so many layers to the topic I barely know where to start, though, just as freedom itself can be a sticky issue involving questions of individual liberty versus responsibility to others.

I suppose on the broadest possible level, my brain can come up with anything at all to write about. And at an only slightly narrower level, legally I can write pretty much anything I want.  I’m fortunate to live in a country where I have broad leeway to do and say what I want with significant legal protections for my right to say things. I know there are places in the world where that isn’t true.

That said, there are still some constraints. Ugly legal consequences are likely to ensue if I decide to write something that slanders or libels others, plagiarizes someone else, or violates trademarks, etc. Those should be repugnant for an ethical author in any case.

The next level would be standards of good taste that one violates at one’s own risk. There are things I simply won’t write about it. I’m not going into detail because others won’t necessarily agree with my limits, and some people can write well about sensitive topics that I wouldn’t dare tackle. This is also a moving target. Fifty years ago four-letter words and anything hotter than a chaste kiss were verboten in romance novels. Now frank language is the norm and details of sex acts are pretty much expected unless the book is characterized as “sweet.”

And then there’s the practical level, the one that comes down to decisions about marketability, viability, and career-building. At its most basic it’s about the realities of the publishing industry today, and this is the one where I struggle. The way things stand today, whether you’re published by a company big or small or even self-publishing, you’re most likely road to success is to find a niche and fill it as best you can.

And that’s something I’ve never been able to do. My restless imagination chases ideas through a number of different genres and subgenres, returning with story ideas that rarely fit well into any single category or series. I’ve been published in mystery, romance, fantasy, romantic suspense, and paranormal. 

I have one mystery series that lost its publisher after the first one when Five Star/Cengage cut its mystery line. The second one had been written and accepted editorially at the time of the purge, and I’ve since self-published it. Harlequin picked it up (as it hard the first one) and will do a mass market paperback for the Worldwide Mystery Library. And I’m now in the process of writing the third in the series. So far sales aren’t blowing the roof off, but I’m just happy that I actually have some.

So I’ve exercised my right to write whatever I want, and the market has exercised its right to shrug and mostly ignore me. That’s the way it goes.

If you'd like to check out all the different books I've published over the years and their assorted genres, come visit my website at http://www.kmccullough.com

Bean Counters and Brutality

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

Not long ago on one of my eloops there was a discussion on the recent Harlequin line closings. One of the group asked if we didn’t think the business was getting more brutal these days.

I'm a cynic, but I believe the industry started getting brutal in the 80s, when the 'acquisition mania' began and the bean counters took over. Before the 80s publishing was still a kind of gentlemen's game - a strict game, with rules about agents and royalties and the superiority of publishers over mere authors - but although sometimes harsh still a place more friendly to authors than it is now. You could submit a book over the transom (does anyone still use that phrase any more?) and actually have it looked at. Publishers would take a chance on something new. They would work to build an author's career. It was a working symbiosis - a somewhat lopsided one, but not too bad for the authors.

Then in the 80s the financial world went mad in every field. Big publishers gobbled up small houses and were in turn gobbled up by bigger publishers. Books were no longer regarded as books and keepers of the culture, but as items to be marketed, just in the same way as shoes and handbags and other retail objects. ("Hey, design 617 is selling well, so let's do it in green and purple and puce too.") As time went on the publishers began to tighten the niches and if a niche didn't pay off enough to suit them, it was marginalized if not eradicated altogether. Everyone wanted something exactly the same as the current bestseller... but different. Writers who did not write (and re-write) exactly what the publisher wanted eventually disappeared from the company's rolls. The bean counters had taken over. People were expected to read what they made available and the market began to slide, which made the bean counters tighten things up to a stranglehold.

Then came the digital revolution and the phenomenon of self-publishing. This is a mixed blessing, as there is so much dreck out there it's startling, but there is also a lot of good stuff, stuff that had been marginalized by the traditional publishers. Readers could once again find whatever kind of genre and sub-genre they wanted. Self-publishing authors were getting - finally! - a fair share of the money and not being treated as if they were nothing but a supporting cog who would be replaced if they didn't behave.

The big publishers still don't understand this phenomenon. Yes, they utilize it by putting out ebooks and clinging ferociously to ebook rights, but I honestly believe they don't understand the basic standards at work here. Writers write what they want to write, and readers read what they want to read - all without the dictatorial hand of big publishers controlling what is available. It is the free market in microcosm. And the big publishers don't get it, so they still act as they always have. A sub-genre doesn't pay off the way they expect, so axe it. We as readers shouldn't worry - self-publishers will soon fill the gap. 

I know there are writers who are well treated by their publishers, whether big or small, and will probably read this post with astonishment or anger. I rejoice that you are happy, but there are lots, lots more of us who have seen the other side and understand. 

Has the industry turned brutal lately? Lately? It always has been.

A Matter of Perception

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

The cold season is starting to set in. In my part of the country that means the temps are dropping into the 50s and 60s during the night and the 60s and 70s during the day. Love it! I know that later on we will probably have some ice and maybe a day or two’s worth of snow, but that’s all. We will have some cold weather, just enough so I can enjoy wearing my furs, and that will be refreshing after a summer of the sky constantly being on ‘broil.’

Still, that’s what we’re used to and we live with it. I think it’s all just what we get used to. In September The Husband and I went to Massachusetts to attend a friend’s wedding. It was beautiful even though the leaves had not yet started to turn. The temperatures were ideal. I rhapsodized about them, enjoying them and telling our friend that they were just perfect, as we had left temperatures still hovering around 100 at home. He laughed and agreed, but then said that for most of the winter there would be real cold and lots of snow – like he had 8 feet in his yard last winter.

Eight feet! That’s as tall as our ceilings at home. No, thank you. I cannot see how anyone could exist in such conditions, let alone choose to stay in them. But that’s just me… our friend and his new bride just love it there, so I wish them and anyone who else who likes it joy. Just don’t expect me to come visiting during the winter!

On the other hand, when The Husband and I were in Egypt in January of 2010, I was startled to see coats and sweaters and boots that looked like Arctic gear in a number of Cairo shops. I was even more startled when, later that same trip we were in the Valley of the Kings – half the country south of Cairo. I was wearing a short sleeve polo shirt, lightweight jeans, hiking boots, a sun hat and one of those sleeveless, multi-pocketed photographer’s vests – open, I might add. It was a very comfortable outfit and I was only sweating a little bit. I walked around a corner and literally bumped into a local man.

We stared at each other and I don’t know which of us was the more startled. He had on heavy jeans, boots, a shirt, a sweater and over all that a fur-trimmed parka. He was not sweating. Neither of us said anything, just kept staring as if at some strange alien species while we circled around each other enough to continue on our individual ways.

The point of this little weather report is that it all comes down to perception, and perception controls our writing. Whatever we write – sweet romance, erotica, mysteries, horror, whatever – there are some who are going to say ‘Ooh, how can you write that stuff?’ or ‘It’s all I ever read.’ What is important is not so much what genre you write, but which readers you reach. No one kind of book is going to please all readers, just like no one climate is going to please everyone. To try is kind of foolish, don’t you think?

Genre-bending is regarded by some as a way to try and reach more readers. Maybe it is, but if trying to expand your readership is the only reason you have a cowboy in a space ship having a romance with an alien fairy your story is going to be forced and flat. If having that cowboy in a space ship having a romance with an alien fairy is your story, the essence of why your story exists, go for it.

And that’s the important thing – the integrity of your story. One of the constants is that no story is going to be liked/read by everyone. You cannot please everyone, so you should only be concerned with being true to your story. Metaphorically, snow or sun, ocean or mountains, your story should be your prime concern. Write your story and let the readers come – don’t chase them.