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.

Stretch Those Muscles...

by Janis Susan May

No, my dear friends, I have not gone over to the dark side and become an exercise freak. My main idea of exercise is pushing my luck and jumping to conclusions.

No, I'm talking about a more cerebral form of exercise – writing. Yeah, a writer regarding writing as exercise – weird, huh? Only those who do not write would think so. Writing can be as demanding and exhausting physically as any calisthenic, but just in a different way. Between the demands of the body having to stay still, except for the hands and fingers which work double and triple time, and the mind constantly laboring to create, writing is downright draining.

The only thing worse is not being able to write.

Oh, I haven't had writers' block or physical problems or anything like that. I've had work. My book-every-two-weeks 30 June-30 October publishing blitz is winding down (Hallelujah!) but it has been an insane amount of work. Every book is freshly edited – the re-releases by me, the two new ones first by me, then by a professional (and very tough!) editor. Then it's on to my wonderful formatter, who is a delight and puts up with all my weird fits and starts and – let's be honest – mistakes, and my extremely gifted cover artist who tries to make my weird ideas reality. All that, plus all the normal duties of life like family and laundry and cooking. The Husband has been kind and very supportive, but he's so anxious for me to get back into the kitchen. Man cannot be expected to live on frozen pizza alone!

I have always been a writer – wrote my first 'book' at the tender age of four, and no, it's not part of this publishing blitz! The creation of stories, of lives and worlds beyond that of my own rather mundane existence, is like air to me. Deprivation of it is a hardship.

But deprived I was during this work-filled summer. New ideas and half-finished manuscripts – I always work on a minimum of three projects at once – jammed up in my brain, demanding the release of being written. I tried, but there are only so many hours in the day and only so much energy, both of which seem to decrease as I age. Most nights I was too tired even to read. That, thankfully, is passing, and once more on most days I can give a short time to my bulging Kindle.

Once more, too, I can begin to write again. Despite the urgency of the clamoring characters in my head, the process is slow and tentative, like stretching and then walking before running. Hesitantly, the words are starting to creep out from my fingers, almost as if unsure of their welcome. The stories are coming, building in strength and complexity. I feel almost as if I were waking from a long sleep.

It is a welcome feeling.

UPDATE :

Believe it or not, my publishing blitz is still right on schedule. And that schedule is getting shorter – after this book there are only two more in this particular round. The Husband is insistent that once this is done I am to take some time away from the computer and – according to him – reacquaint myself with the kitchen. He does like frozen pizza and takeaway, but even the mildest mannered man has his limits!

This fortnight's offering is THE OTHER HALF OF YOUR HEART, a romantic adventure set in the jungles of Mexico – not far from Puerto Vallarta, where I lived for a short but happy while. None of the wild escapades that befall the heroine ever happened to me (drat!) but writing about a country I love was great fun.

A weekend in a Mexican resort with the man she loves quickly becomes a nightmare of fear and danger for Cara Walters. If she can just survive being lost in the jungle, captured by the army, hunted by drug lords and a man who wants to kill her, all the while being held prisoner by the man who has stalked her, she just might find out who is the other half of her heart.

And – for all you calorie lovers – my super-special dessert recipe called Chocolate Sin (try it and you'll know why it's named that!) was chosen for inclusion in the new book of desserts called BAKE LOVE WRITE, a wonderful compendium of calories and advice.  

Still Not Nesting

When I sold my first book to Avalon, I learned that the print run would be about 2,000 copies. Of course I was thrilled anyway, and the thought of having several thousand people read my book made me giddy. The print runs on the other four Avalon books were similar, and since I chose to put the last Wally Morris mystery out myself, with the help of CreateSpace, it was probably less.

But the amazing thing is that I once had an audience of over a million readers. A long time ago I had read an op-ed column by Anna Quindlen, a person whose opinions I respected, and I strongly disagreed with her. You can read my letter to the editor, thanks to the magic of the internet. Believe me, though, if I couldn’t have found it that way, I have copies of the newspaper from that day tucked safely away.

LIVING DESK

Nesting

Published: February 10, 1988

To The Living Section:

Anna Quindlen's column on the nesting instinct [ Life in the 30's, Jan. 27 ] reminds us that the grass is still greener on the other side.

Nesting is not all what a person who doesn't have a job does all day. Those of us who don't have jobs do not all spend the entire time our children are in school having lunch with our friends or furniture shopping and picking out wallpaper. We have the luxury of having time to do these things occasionally (and without the children, which is the only sane way), but we also feel strong responsibilities to various activities, which we probably wouldn't have time for if we were working.

We make sure our children get to their different after-school activities. We also work on committees handling such trivialities as improving our children's education and starting recycling programs in our towns. Some of us even have to find sitters to take our infants so we can have the time to do such things as performing in a puppet show that seeks to sensitize third graders to the handicapped. We don't expect help from working mothers for these things, although some of them occasionally ask us to chauffeur their children around since they think we have nothing better to do.

One thing that I have noticed is different: we don't have to send a sick child to school. That's usually the day we do a lot of nesting, because it stops our whirlwind of activities and there's not much else we can do. One or two days spent at home nesting, particularly with a cranky child, is plenty for most of us, and more than satisfies that need for months. JOANI ASCHER South Orange, N.J.

Looking at that letter all these years later. I hope I did not hurt anyone’s feelings. It is hard to get everything done, I’m sure, especially if a person has a full-time job. And now, from the standpoint of a writer trying to get book after book finished and published while people think that just because I only work part time the rest of my time is available for whatever, I find myself just giving in, putting off my work, so that I can do those jobs that full-time workers don’t have time to do. My children are grown and gone, and the only person home with me, during the days when I’m not working at my outside job, has four legs and a tail. But she needs time too, so that she can develop into a good Seeing Eye® guide dog.

And I can always hope that someday I’ll have a circulation closer to the one I had for my letter to the editor over twenty years ago before I started writing professionally.

Down the Rabbit Hole…, or My Adventures in Self-Publishing

by Janis Susan May

I put off self-publishing my backlist for a long time. Not that I didn’t want my early books given new life or to find new readers. I was even entranced at the thought of maybe making the kind of BIG MONEY that some self-pubbers are. (Am still waiting for that…)

So why did I wait? Because I am such a thoroughgoing techno-naif the entire process terrified me. (Yes, there are services who do this sort of thing – I couldn’t afford them.) As one who can open and save a Word document and feels inordinate pride in being able to read and respond to emails, the idea of putting up a book was overwhelming. What if something went wrong and I looked like even more of an idiot than I already felt? What if I pushed the wrong button and my book disappeared? What if I pushed a bunch of wrong buttons and crashed Amazon or Barnes&Noble? (Yes, I do tend to overestimate my abilities.)

Finally, after a small amount of my favorite adult libation and a heartening pep talk from The Husband, I put up my first ebook to a resounding round of… silence. The first review complained about the formatting, over which I had slaved. The second trashed my baby so badly we were both bleeding, so I and my ego crawled into a metaphoric hole and pulled the dirt in over us.

The Husband was relentlessly encouraging, and urged me to persevere. I had enough royalties from my trad published books to hire a formatter and buy some inexpensive pre-made covers for a few more books so I gave in. My sales inched up and I was overjoyed.

Time passed. I became less terrified of the process. The Husband pushed me again, even though I told him it would probably be a couple of centuries before we could retire (his dream) on my writing income. We went back to the drawing board and he agreed to float my writing career a much-needed loan.

I found an incredible cover artist who, for a surprisingly reasonable amount, created a fantastic cover that would do for both paperback and ebook. (Most pre-made ebook covers will not go for paper – the resolution is too low to print well. Who knew?) She also created a beautiful logo for my newly christened publishing company, Sefkhat-Awbi Books, a name that resonates with both The Husband and me as both of us are enthusiastic amateur Egyptologists. For those who are curious, Sefkhat-Awbi is an obscure New Kingdom regional variant on the name of Sheshat, the Ancient Egyptian goddess of writing.

I went back to my fave formatter, who not only re-formatted my newly tidied ebook but created a paperback that would rival anything done by New York. Frankly, considering some of the things that have come from the Big 5 recently, it looks much better than many a New York product!

Curious about the result? FAMILY OF STRANGERS is a traditional Gothic romance set in Victorian-era Scotland and is now available from better retailers. (The paper version can even be ordered through brick-and-mortar stores as well as on the net!) Here’s the cover …

Stay tuned – I’ve scheduled a few more Gothic mysteries (not necessarily set in Scotland, though), a clutch of traditional Regencies, a couple of international romantic adventures and a cozy mystery or two to come.

I’m not to the point of feeling smug or truly comfortable with the process of being my own publisher yet, but it’s getting less intimidating by the day!

Note to Self: Don't Double Space

When I decided that I couldn’t just let my final Wally Morris mystery, Vengeance Acts Up, wallow in dejected, rejected ignominy, I made the decision to self-publish it using CreateSpace.  I read closely all the comments on the former Avaloners loop, looking for info and helpful hints from other authors who had already made the leap.  Unfortunately, I seem to have missed a few essential pieces of advice, surely given in the instructions, but overlooked by my husband, the one who actually did all the computer entries, and me.

We really tried hard.  I copied as much as possible each page of one of my earlier Avalons, to make sure that my headers were done right, and the title pages and dedications were all good.  I forgot (unbelievably, I do work in a library, after all) the copyright page, which was a shame, because it would have been one more place to list our newly formed, unofficial, publishing company, TWELVE PUPPIES PUBLISHING.  We chose that in honor of the twelve Seeing Eye® puppies we’ve raised and put our current one at the time, Nana, in the logo spot on the back of the book.  She was seven-weeks-old in the picture and had just been delivered from The Seeing Eye® breeding center.

Trust me, it’s cute.  You can look at it yourself. http://www.amazon.com/Vengeance-Acts-Up-Mystery-Mysteries/dp/0615824099/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

After an amazingly short time, the brand-spanking-new proof arrived.  You can imagine our dismay when the book came in at a hefty 450 plus pages.  We’re talking doorstop.  It was huge.

It turned out that we should not have sent the book in double-spaced. There were a few other mistakes I didn’t pick up until I looked at the proof in person (rather than the convenient and free version on the computer screen.)  Also, there was the biggish mistake I won’t name that was in the Kindle version http://www.amazon.com/Vengeance-Wally-Morris-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00CW5DGS4/ref=tmm_kin_title_popover  (does anyone know what to do to get that fixed?) that my daughter caught.  Actually, that was another mistake we made—doing them in that order. And, because I didn’t quite understand the terms, I managed to make the book semi-unavailable, especially to the vendors who sell to libraries.

The next time I use CreateSpace to publish one of my books (I have a huge backlog so I hope it’s soon but we always seem to be too busy) we will try to follow the rules.  Right now we are raising our thirteenth Seeing Eye® puppy, Holliday (no, we don’t name them), but I don’t think it’s really wise or practical to change the name of the publisher. One never knows for sure, so we’ll all just have to wait and see.  We could be at the beginning of a publishing dynasty.

Two proofs after the doorstop, and still missing the verso page, (we are a little boneheaded at times) we had a copy we liked.  I had a book signing at home (really a cake fest with wine, beer, cheese, fruit, ten things my daughter and I baked, and oh, yeah, books for sale), tons of people came, and everyone had a good time.

But we didn’t let anyone see the doorstop.