Significantly influenced

Ever wondered about the future of advertising your books online?

I've just discovered it is possible to do one Amazon Ad and have more than one title on that ad.

I read that the future will be significantly influenced by AI. Well, I sort of expected that. Protecting consumer data is also crucial. Wasn't that critical when they were teaching AI to write books, though, was it? so I'm not entirely convinced on that one.

Already AD Agencies are touting for business among authors. "let us do your advertising..." 

Pretty soon they'll be writing the books for the (possibly top-line) authors and reaping the royalties before someone reads the book and says "this wasn't as good as the last one - are you sure s/he really wrote it?" Because  *they* could write any sort of rubbish, stick a famous authors name on it and what re-dress does the author have? Or the reader who paid good money for something that is basically a fraud? There probably isn't a law that covers it ... yet.

*anyone who wanted to and had the IT knowledge to do it, really.

How long can this go on?

 Ten days later and I am still struggling to finish the latest wip! The tale is nearly done but the word count is rather lower than I am used to. Perhaps it is really not necessary now to go the whole 70k words in a historical romance, for I have found a lot of books I have read lately in that genre have ended before I was quite ready for it.

Some of these stories now seem to rely on whole episodes describing sexual encounters - pages and pages of it! It's not that I'm 'disgusted of Chichester' complaining but the pages have an unhappy habit of being so like other author's attempts on the same subject that it becomes a tad boring. After all, there are only so many ways a couple can copulate and I'm beginning to feel cheated of story. 

But then again, perhaps the authors have found a similar problem with their stories as I have - they struggle to find something new to write about! The genre has been popular for such a long time and finding a new plot is a struggle. Every author can write a popular plot in their own style and come up with something that seems new and fresh, but eventually the new and fresh becomes old hat too.

I do wonder how long this can go on.

It shows in everything they do!

 Dialogue is important. to a writer and also to a reader.

Each character in the story should have their own voice. The reader should be able to recognise a teenage girl's dialogue from a business man's without being told which is which.

Working in some speech patterns helps readers grow familiar with particular characters.

Sometimes what is said is at odds with body language and this can be a Good Thing. We can signal disapproval with our faces, bodies and eye contact or lack of it. It doesn't have to be verbal to get the point across.

Showing signs of a character's emotions is more powerful than simply telling.

Men and Women are different, and it shows in everything they do and say - or don't say!

Not a cosy mystery

 I confessed I was about to try a new venture.

A cosy mystery, since I have got quite close to writing one with some of my historical romances.

I got the prologue done, and half of the first chapter and realised it wasn't a cosy mystery at all. Or rather, a good friend pointed out that if I have police in it, then its a police procedural and not a cosy.

I thought about eliminating the police and decided to plough on and see what turned up next. More and more it is becoming a  police procedural. The pathologist has arrived in the third chapter and I am curious to know if my local area has a mortuary used by Home Office pathologists. Then I discovered all pathologists especially the forensic type, are employed by the Home Office. Watching crime on tv and checking up can lead to some pretty dark corners. Who knew mortuaries advertised for body washers? 

I keep checking things on Google since I don't have any police people in the family. But facts about the police can be hard to find. They do not seek publicity. In fact, they do the precise opposite. My local police force are accused of not informing people of things they need to know.

However, I shall keep plodding on and hope to invent dialogue that does not plod, have my characters spring to life on the page and end up with something I can be proud of having created.. 

A spark of an idea

 In this quiet time  it can't hurt to revise some of the generally accepted rules of writing good fiction. The tips I have gleaned over the last decade are not intended as Rules To Be Obeyed by any means. Sometimes I need a refresher and to remember that a story may start with no more than a spark of an idea and a living character. Though characters rarely come fully formed,  they can be built. What is needed?

Personality
Abilities/disabilities
History, hang ups and goals
Relationship to career/house/city/weather/ traffic and of course
Relationships past and present to family, friends, lovers and pets.
An attitude to love and marriage.

If you have all those fixed in your mind, then what does the story need?

A plot goal and an opening conflict or problem
Obstacles between the characters and their goals
A setting - and, of course, the character's attitude to that setting.

Then there is Motivation

The Hero/Heroine should have one major motivation driving them (The Prime Motivating Force)

It is often linked to a dramatic incident in their past and goes without saying that for a Romance and possibly every other genre the Hero/Heroine need conflicting goals

I often need to remind myself that one thing should not overpower everything else. For example, I have been reading a thriller set in Rome and I found myself getting very irritated - or perhaps bored is a better word - by the amount of words devoted to Rome itself. Since I have never been, the names of streets or buildings mean nothing to me and I felt the author had let his love of setting overpower the
story. 

Does publishing have a future?

 When Lockdown began on 23^rd March, Waterstones closed its 280 branches. Independent bookshops did the same. Supermarkets focussed on food and stopped ordering from publishers. Amazon did the same.

Publishers furloughed staff because there was little work to do. Newspapers saw the dwindling numbers of books for review. Publication of new titles has been delayed, and there is no news of when everything will be, if ever, back to normal.

People claim books have helped them get through lockdown. Most publishers record an increase in e-books sales via their website and sometimes wonder if Amazon’s monopoly can be broken. Literary agent Johnny Geller has been saying for 20 years, "Why not go into direct selling?”

Some publishers dismiss the idea as too complex and expensive, but others are talking about it after Amazon turned off the supply tap.

Authors are used to self-isolation, but it is hard to know what to write. Some who have been recently published feel their books have disappeared into a black hole. Others think that fewer books on the scene have helped them. The book promotion trail is non-existent, and literary festivals have fallen by the wayside.

Some independent bookshops ie Forum Books in Corbridge, have got together a series of events on Facebook Live. There are other online events around, but the usual camaraderie of a drink after the talk is over is just not possible.

Supermarkets and Amazon are getting back to normal now. Commercial fiction is doing well. In some quarters there is an assumption that the market will be down 70% in the second quarter of the year, and 50% in the third. They hope the fourth quarter will be close to normal.

 Recent experience has shown that people can work from anywhere and more can be done online. The next decade may be interesting as far as publishing is concerned. It would be nice to see some regional  offices scattered around the country rather than everything being centred in London.

Which is the real me?

Victorian and regency romances, Tudor and Viking adventures – do they all sit happily together? I’ve been wondering that for some time. Which is my favourite? That would be whichever one I’m writing at the time. Which is closest to the real me? I cannot say but I think they all reflect part of me. If I could only write one, which would I choose? A dreadful question and happily one I do not have to answer!

In the greater scheme of things, does it matter? Not to me, but I wonder sometimes if it puts off readers. If they think I read soft romances, will an adventure story be up to the mark? You can turn that on its head for the other side of the coin. I think it can be done. Not by everyone, perhaps, because some people are only happy in one genre.

Crossing or writing in different genres certainly means more research, but I’m one of those people who finds research as much a pleasure as writing. Sometimes more so, because it is most rewarding to find something you’ve been searching for and struggled to find.

The other thing is that switching between time periods and genres prevents staleness. If I find the edge (of interest and enthusiasm) sliding down the slippery slope, then it might be time to consider writing an adventure rather than a romance. Then interest levels perk right back up, because it all seems so new.

A review I like!

19 April 2018

Queen’s Courier by Jen Black

AMAZON UK £1.20 £8.99

AMAZON US $1.66 $14.53

AMAZON CA $1.95

Fictional saga

1500s Tudor

Scotland

Jen Black’s novels are a delight to read, not merely because of the enjoyment of ‘romance’ but because she is adept at diversifying from one period to another with apparent ease. This one is set in that troubling Tudor era where England and Scotland do not see eye-to-eye. Here, the future Mary Queen of Scots has her life mapped out by her mother, Mary of Guise and the English monarch, Henry VIII. But not all maps are reliable or pre-ordained, nor do the map-makers necessarily agree with each others’ marks on the charts they hope to produce.

The Queen’s Courier is a sequel to Abduction of the Scots Queen, where Matho Spirston had kidnapped Mary, an infant, and given her into the care of Margaret Douglas - Meg - the daughter of the Earl of Angus and Henry VIII’s sister, with Meg then being blamed for the deed. But it is not necessary to read this first novel (although I would recommend it!)  

Matthew, Earl of Lennox, champions Meg but he is greedy for power, and as the niece to the English King, Meg herself  is obliged to retain her virginity and follow the King’s permission for marriage. As for the future Mary Queen of Scots, Henry wants her as wife to his son, Edward. Her mother has different plans.

The author, in addition to being able to write delightful novels, is skilled at taking the reader right into the feel of time and place, by painting visual pictures within her narrative. Her research is well done, as is her depiction of the unsettled politics of the period, with all the upheaval of war, intrigue, scandal, plot after counter-plot and the dangers of being an appointed spy where messages had to be taken in utmost secrecy between Scotland, London and France.

Jen Black’s characters are believable, the diplomacy, the scheming, the hopes, dreams, nightmares and dangers all zip along at a good page-turning pace. The only regret I had is knowing the eventual fate of Mary Queen of Scots!

© Ellen Hill

Amazon payouts and future worries

Every self-published author will have heard of Hugh Howey. They may even have read one of his books though they are a dystopian-sci-fi mix that is not everyone's taste. I cane across a post of his while checking for comment on Amazon's Kenp system of payment (ie payment by number of pages read at the rate of $0.0056 per page) His long post is worth reading.

http://www.hughhowey.com/subscription-models-literature/       and so is this one:

https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2015/07/05/kindle-unlimited-math-with-kenpc/

In summary, Howey says:

1. Kindle Unlimited (KU) 2.0 pays per page a higher rate for an ebook borrow than major publishers pay per page for a print sale.

2. KU 2.0 seems to be an attempt by Amazon to pay the same per borrow that they pay per sale, if ebooks are priced according to their recommendations.

3. KU 2.0 more fairly rewards time invested by authors and time spent by readers than KU 1.0.

4. I have yet to see an argument by anyone showing how KU 1.0 was more fair to authors than KU 2.0.

Since the Amazon monthly reports were out yesterday, I have seen mine. Since this new payment system began I have sold fewer books, but my income is much as it was because of the payments on the pages read.  Now instead of looking for sales, I look for the number of pages read. It can be addictive! Who, for example, is the person in Australia who read one page and never read another? Why did they give up? (I find myself thinking of family - there are quite a few Blacks out there! it could have been one of them, and I'm not sure my stories appeal to the young and trendy!)

So now I'm wondering if going free every now and then is a way of bumping up the KENP payment system. Possibly. I'm also thinking that this road leads to books been given away for free forever and payment coming via people who read them, where does it leave the literary prize winner who - so it is claimed - has very few sales but lots of critical applause? Where does it leave mainstream publishers and their advances? I suppose it is a fairness in the argument that if no one ever reads a certain book, then no payment should be made on it.

But how soul destroying for the writer. And how odd to think that  a book like the infamous 50 Shades would earn millions for its author. Is there not a danger that many writers will be persuaded to write similar erotic material? That would mean the average person's reading choice would become severely restricted and that is not a happy thought.

Fascinating facts for writers and readers

Public Lending Right says five children's authors are among the top ten most borrowed authors in UK libraries in 2014-15.

It also shows James Patterson at the head of the list for the ninth year running - but is that surprising when he published 15 books in that time period and has 300 titles to his credit? Fortunately he doesn't get PLR payments, for which other authors must be grateful! The 202 authors who received the maximum capped £6,600 are all from the UK.

Thrillers are the most popular genre. Nine out of the top ten most borrowed books are in this group.

Among classic authors Shakespeare came in at number ten with Jane Austen at eleven. Roald Dahl was top, with Enid Blyton second and Agatha Christie third.

David Walliams’w popularity continues to grow and he’s now the 41st most borrowed author compared to his 157th position in 2012-13. His book Awful Auntie was also the most borrowed title in libraries in Northern Ireland. “What fantastic taste the children of Northern Ireland have,” said Walliams. “I am beyond delighted. Libraries are vital for children and adults to discover a wide variety of books. Long may they live!” Another big riser was Liz Pichon (64th from 160th last year), who was told off for doodling as a child. But the author of the excellent Tom Gates series, which she writes and illustrates, is one of the most popular in libraries.

David Walliams’s popularity continues to grow and he’s now the 41st most borrowed author compared to his 157th position in 2012-13

In the humour category  Bart Simpson: Big Shot! by Matt Groening came top.

"So many writers benefit from PLR money. In February 2016, PLR will make payments totalling £6 million to 22,347 writers, illustrators, photographers, editors, translators, adaptors, narrators, producers and abridgers. This year’s rate per loan is 7.67 pence."

In the travel and holiday genre, Londoners chose Lonely Planet’s Italy by Cristian Bonetto as their top pick. Other regions disagreed - in Scotland the most borrowed was Edinburgh for Under Fives, edited by Cathy Tingle; in Wales it was Insufficiently Welsh, by Griff Rhys Jones; and in Yorkshire it was North York Moors & Yorkshire Wolds, by Mike Bagshaw.

Mary Berry was the most burrowed non-fiction writer, but MC Beaton, author of the Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth crime fiction books, has held the title of most borrowed British author of books for adults for the last six years. MC Beaton said: “I am thrilled to bits to be the most borrowed British author in UK public libraries. Writing is a very isolating job and, as I am only human, PLR is a sort of lifeline to me from the general borrowing public. I thank them from the bottom of my inky heart.”

Catherine Cookson remains the UK’s most borrowed author over the past 20 years: her books have been borrowed over 32 million times between 1995 and 2015. Jacqueline Wilson is the UK’s most borrowed children’s author over the past 20 years: her books have been borrowed over 24 million times between 1995 and 2015.

Read all the detail here: Martin Chilton, culture editor 5 FEBRUARY 2016 • 6:54AM

Depressing news for authors

There’s a new survey out and it tells depressing news. 

Almost 50% of writers are not happy with their earnings. 

A third make less than $500 (£329) a year. It also shows that “the old way of doing things continues to reap the most financial rewards for writers.” 

Traditionally published authors make an average of $3,000–$4,999 (£1,976- £3,292) a year. 

Independent writers make $500–$999 (£329-£658). 

Those who use both ways – earned $7,500–$9,999 (£4,941- £6,587) a year.

Almost 10% earned $100,000 (£65,874) or more, with 4.1% earning $250,000 (£164,681) plus. At the other end of the scale, 50% of writers earned $1,000– $2,999 (£658- £1,976) or less this year.

(That's converting dollars to sterling at today's exchange rates. It always sounds so much more  in dollars!)

The survey claims Independent authors like doing things on their own terms. “I know that if my book doesn’t sell today, there’s more I can do to promote it tomorrow, or maybe it will see a boost when my next book comes out.”

Traditionally published authors on the other hand are willing to give up their rights for royalties, like the fact that the publisher takes all risks and think a publisher can do more than they could themselves.

If you want to read Alison Flood's article in full, here's the link ~  http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/23/authors-earnings-fall-350pa-survey

Battle lines

Kindle Unlimited (KU) attracted negative press coverage 

as indie authors saw what was happening to their sales. The general bad feeling floating around on the internet since Kindle Unlimited’s launch finally made it to the front page of the New York Times last Sunday“If you’re not an author with a slavish fan following, you’re in a lot of trouble” according to self-published author Bob Mayer “Everyone already has a ton of things on their Kindle they haven’t opened".

“What is now being proven is that market is not infinitely elastic,” publishing industry consultant Mike Shatzkin wrote on his blog on New Year’s Eve. “It seems likely that the low-priced indie authors are disproportionately affected by KU. Who bought indie author ebooks in the first place? The price-sensitive reader! Who switches from buying individual ebooks to the subscription service first? The price-sensitive reader! In other words, the subscription service offering appeals most to the same audience as those who read indie-published ebooks.”

Meanwhile, Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader wondered whether ebook subscription services are only a problem for indie authors or whether they will be a problem for traditional publishers as well. Of course, one of the main reasons that publishers feared ebook subscriptions in the first place was that they worried such services would cannibalize individual paid sales.  

Like all the other self-published authors, I noticed my sales were dwindling and there were few KU payments to compensate. So I unchecked the box that allows my titles to be read by Kindle Unlimited subscribers, only to find that it will take 90 days to become effective. And, of course, I was only 4 days into the next 90 days period, so I can look forward to poor sales until March. 

If Amazon continues to favour the reader over the author, one wonders what will happen down the line. Authors will no doubt pull out of Amazon altogether. There are other places to self-publish. As long as readers seek the cheapest form of reading, they will continue to use Amazon - until the stock available becomes so mediocre they too will go elsewhere.



 

Complaints about Kindle Unlimited

Best selling American writer H M Ward has something to say about Kindle Unlimited.

"Ok, some of you already know, but I had my serials in it for 60 days and lost approx 75% of my income. Thats counting borrows and bonuses. My sales dropped like a stone. The number of borrows was higher than sales. They didn't compliment each other, as expected.

Taking a huge ass pay cut while I'm still working my butt off, well that's not ok. And KU effected my whole list, not just KU titles. At the time of enrollment I had about 60 titles total.

I planned on giving it 90 days, but I have a kid in the hospital for long term care and I noticed my spending was going to exceed my income-by a lot. I couldn't wait and watch thing plummet further. I pulled my books. That was on Nov 1, & since then my net revenue has gone up. I'm now at 50% of where I was pre-KU. During the time I was in KU, I had 2 new releases. Neither preformed vastly different than before. They actually earned far less (including borrows).

This model needs to be changed for it to work. Authors shouldn't be paid lottery style. For this system to work we need a flat rate for borrows, borrowed or not borrowed (not this 10% crap), and it needs to be win win for the reader AND the writer. That is the crux of the matter.

Id like to see Amazon create something new, something better instead of falling in step with Scribd and Oyster.

Example: subscribe to an AUTHOR. Easy, clear. When Author X has a new book it automatically gets sent to your kindle, & the card provided is charged.

As a reader, I'd want that. As a writer, I'd want that.

Amazon, stop following other companies and break the mold.

Ok, I'm done ranting. Back to writing."

I'd notice my sales have gone way down since Kindle Unlimited appeared on the scene, but thought there could be many causes for this. It is reassuring to see other top-selling authors complaining about the same thing. And complaining they are!

Here's a link all independent authors using Amazon should read.
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,202571.0/all.html

There's also a link to this article on the new blog Passive Voice over to the right hand side of this blog.

Self-publishing and praise

Time to turn my attention to something new - or two things - Promotion and A New Story.

As autumn sets in here in Northumberland, the days are growing shorter and the nights longer. The days are still amazingly warm. Yesterday afternoon was 16.5 C and there are flowers blooming among the berries and fallen leaves. Last night I kept moving to a cool spot on the sheets and we have not had the heating on much at all yet, hence clammy towels in the bathroom, which I hate.

But the weather will change, as it always does, and indoor pursuits will become more important - and the radiators will be hot and towels cuddly and warm when I want them.
Promotion will be a necessity, now that I have a paperback out in public. (I haven't, yet, but it won't be long now, and I'm starting to think about what I should do.)

Some people have said I should have begun already, but there was no time. It seemed silly to put the book aside and work on promoting it! Much better to finish the book and get it published first. This, of course, is where traditional publishing wins out. While someone else worries about editing, covers and proofreading your book, you can be off and away doing other things. What a lovely thought. But I listen to authors saying how wonderful it is to have an editor to discuss things with and decide upon alterations and wonder how much of the story changes in those discussions. How big are the alterations? How much is then down to the author and how much to the editor? At least with my story I can only blame myself if it bombs - but on the other side of the coin,  I can take all the praise - if there should be any!

How much do writers earn?

There is a survey that claims 54% of traditionally-published authors and almost 80% of go-it-alone writers earn less than $1,000 (£600) a year. You may have read about in the January 2014 press.

The 9,210 respondents slotted into four groups: aspiring, self-published only, traditionally-published only, and hybrid (both self-published and traditionally-published). More than 65% of those who filled out the survey described themselves as aspiring authors, with 18% self-published, 8% traditionally-published and 6% saying they were pursuing hybrid careers.

77% of Self-published authors make $1,000 (£600) or less a year;

Towpath at Crinan

 0.7% of self-published writers earn more than $100,000 a year

53.9% of traditionally-published authors make $1,000 (£600) or less a year;

1.3% of traditionally-published  earn more than $100,000  a year

43.6% of hybrid authors make $1,000 (£600) or less a year;

5.7% of hybrid writers reported making more than $100,000 a year from their writing. 

Put like that, it sounds a soul destroying exercise if money is the main object of your writing. However,  only 20% of self-pubbed authors and 25% of traditional authors thought making money extremely important. On the other hand,  56% of self-pubbers, and almost 60% of traditional authors, thought it extremely important to "publish a book that people will buy."

The top 2% or so of authors make a good living and the most successful authors – including self-published – make a tremendous amount of money. Maybe that is the lure. We all dream that we'll be one of the lucky ones.

Some writers look to money for validation. If you self-publish, without the prestige of being chosen by a major publisher, then the money is a good substitute. It isn't the only motivation, but matters on many levels. One self-pubbed author thinks the survey is  skewed (my words, not his) because it pits self-pubbed authors with a year or two's experience against traditional authors who spent twenty years in the publishing game. Self-publishing allows authors to learn and hone their skills, and he thinks many are paying bills with money they've earned by writing - and that should be celebrated. 

Read the complete article by Alison Flood: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/17/writers-earn-less-than-600-a-year

More US fiction Titles?

Amazon Publishing plans to increase activity in the UK. President Jeff Belle says the company plans to release 500 titles in 2014. Included will be US-acquired titles as well UK-acquired titles.

Cynic I may be but I fear this may mean more and more of our bookshop shelves will be taken over by US authors. They want us to buy their books, of course they do, just as we want them to buy ours. I look along my library shelves and even there, more and more books are set in US locations, about US people and written in the US style. Bookshops are the same. It's the numbers that worry me. Even Facebook and Twitter sound American because there are so many more of them than us. We get drowned out by sheer volume. all the strange rules about avoiding -ing endings and not using was and were - I'm convinced they originated in the US. 

There is a difference in style. Not so much in the literary end of fiction, perhaps, but in the mid-range romances and historicals it is easy to spot the feisty heroine who behaves like a 21st century girl and say Ah! Here we go. A transatlantic version of history, spiced up and usually sexed up. Heroes don't speak, they grit, they swipe, they swoosh.... It's the small things. Remember the film Prince of Thieves where Kevin Costner landed by the white cliffs of Dover and next day arrived at Hadrian's Wall?  I read a romance where the heroine was stranded in the middle of Scotland, escaped through a dungeon and came out on the sea coast. Is that possible? It is not.

I like the more sober, more accurate versions of history (well, most of them) produced by UK authors. I want to read more of them, not have them drowned out or overlooked. I think I can say I'm not altogether happy about Amazon Publishing. Do they plan to publish UK authors in the US? Does anyone know? That might make it a more palatable prospect, but somehow, you know, I doubt that it will happen. 

It's obviously my day for a rant today. Tomorrow I shall be sunny and smiling - but I won't be blogging!

Top-selling authors

Top selling authors belong to a rare club and I suppose we all, secretly, in our heart of hearts, want to join! Jeff Bercovici of Forbes has some interesting thoughts to share in his articles on the topic. So what lessons can the rest of us pick up? The most sound seems to be - Write in a genre that has mass commercial appeal.

(FORBES bases its estimates on sales data, published figures and information from industry sources between June 2012 and June 2013.) 

Top of the list in 2012 is E L James (aka Erika Leonard, nee Mitchell) who has reputedly earned $95 million (£60 million) for her bondage trilogy. As everyone probably knows, she originally wrote it as fan fiction in the style of Twilight author Stephanie Meyer. The books leapt straight into every bestseller list, which throws an interesting side light on modern culture purely because of the theme running through all three books. However, that is not what interests us in this instance. Instead we should speculate if s the books would have had such success if the electronic reading device – which gave every reader a discreet way to imbibe such spicy stuff - had not been invented. 70 million copies sold between Jan-Aug in the USA.  As my good friend Jeffrey once said when he heard I'd taken up writing - “Remember – shagging sells!”

In second place that year was James Patterson, who publishes five or more titles a year with $91 million (£58 million) earned between June 2012 and June 2013. 

It seems fantasy fiction for young adults is a good market, especially if it attracts adult readers. No 3 on the list is Suzanne Collins, who published The Hunger Games trilogy. And earned $55 million. If you can manage a hit film of the story, that will really push book sales. You may have heard of Nora Roberts, too. Well, she stands at 8 on the list, having earned $23 million in 2012. You would think, wouldn't you, that they had all earned enough and they would stop writing and let some other author have a chance at the top prizes.

Michael Pietsch, CEO of Hachette Book Group thinks it’s the surprise and originality of some stories that leads to the giant sales. That’s why there are all these delicious stories of the book that was rejected by 96 publishers – because people are looking at what worked in the past. Then suddenly one brave publisher decides to take a risk, and finds a success on his/her hands.

Unhappily, there is no science behind forecasting the next bestseller, but there is a lot of luck.

Read some of the original articles at the links below:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/fifty-shades-eljames-forbes-highest-paid-authors-499478

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/08/09/women-on-the-rise-among-the-worlds-top-earnings-authors/

Completely Novel

Here we have news of yet another way to get yourself published. CompletelyNovel will team up with Greene & Heaton literary agency to link authors with agents. Unpublished authors may publish their own work in both digital and pbck format and sell it via CN - for a monthly subscription fee. The agency will then consider - consider, mark you - the titles with the highest rating with a view to representing them. Representation, of course, hardly guarantees publication.


The idea seems to have come from Nicola Barr, agent at G & H. She claims they are always looking for new authors and impressed by those who take the initiative and self publish.


“CompletelyNovel offers a great opportunity for emerging writers, and we’re very much looking forward to working alongside them and finding something that makes us fall off our seats with excitement and in horror that we might otherwise have missed it.”


CompletelyNovel offers self-publishers the opportunity to publish two titles a month for free and sell their works through the CompletelyNovel website, or two titles a month for the cost of £7.99 a month and have their works also sold through Amazon “and other retailers”. It’s ‘Pro’ package offers authors the option of publishing 10 titles a month for £14.99 and having those titles sold on the platform and also through Amazon “and other retailers.” The website also give authors the ability to create their own covers online.


As far as I can see, this gives G&H an income they may not otherwise have had, but offers the author very little. any author can publish on Amazon for free, and keep whatever profits they make. Why pay good money for the chance of representation? If representation were guaranteed, that would be different.






Link: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/greene-heaton-teams-completelynovel.html

Was it Always Like This?

http://authorselectric.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-destructive-power-of-publishing.html

A friend passed this link to me today. It is a blog collective with the name Do Authors Dream of Electric Books. Kathleen Jones wrote the piece and I quote a few snippets here to give a flavour of the article. (The whole thing is well worth a read.)

"...two (friends) in particular have really made me aware of the cruel and destructive power of the contemporary publishing industry, which cares more for its shareholders than the creative egos of the authors it depends on for its income.... It's difficult not to come to the conclusion that the supposedly 'traditional' model of the publishing industry has begun to cannibalise itself.

One symptom of this is a recent post on the blog Random Jottings about the historical fiction author Cynthia Harrod Eagles - always chronically under publicised.  Recently the publishers have suggested that she should bring her very successful Morland Dynasty series to an end because it is no longer making quite so much money (but still selling and still in print).  This produced an outcry from her readers, but was apparently very wounding for the author. The publishers could have promoted her books (they're as commercial as Philippa Gregory)  in order to make themselves more profit, but they preferred to wield the axe instead. Why? Something is going on in publishing that is very damaging to authors."

From my own experience, I would say that in any writers group around the country there will be authors who have been "let go" by their publisher. Others live in anxiety because they fear their latest offering will not be contracted. One sometimes get the feeling that they are dropped because their face no longer looks fresh and youthful. There are also the as yet unpublished writers who have good books to offer, who receive compliments from agents but always with the cop-out remark 'afraid it is not quite right for our list.' Well, we want to know what is right for their list? One or two titles a year? Written by someone preferably under twenty, with a photogenic face, who is willing to go round and round the country talking to anyone who will listen? 

Maybe it was always like this for aspiring authors. Many famous authors have said they could paper their downstairs loo with rejection slips before they hit lucky. Maybe it is only because so many people are writing these days, now that computers have made the task so much easier  - in the practical sense at least - that there are so many more rejections, and the electronic world lets us all talk to each other and complain about our rotten luck. Forty years ago, any kind of transworld conversation was via that old-fashioned thing called a letter. Today I sit at my desk, hit buttons and in less than ten seconds I can complain to the world and anyone who will listen ... was it always like this, or are publishers really going to the dogs?

J K Rowling and the book-buying public

There's an article worth reading behind the link quoted below. It has been around for some time, but I've just found it, and I'm "fixing" it here so that I can find it again - and perhaps bring it to the attention of a few more people who, like me, don't always catch the news first time around.

It concerns J K Rowling and her attempts to bring out  new novels under a false name. I can certainly see why she would want to do that. The Harry Potter cult-thing was unique. Enid Blyton was popular but I don't think she suffered the same media attention or the same pressure as J K.  Nor, I am sure, did she make the same amount of money! Once the cult thing began, J K's success was assured, but she must have wondered about her status as writer. Putting books out anonymously was one way of discovering what people truly thought of her work.

It's a sad reflection on people that the ones she trusted  most were the ones who let her down. It is equally a sad reflection on the book buying public - once they knew, they queued up in droves to buy the wretched book. It makes me wonder if any publisher could resist the temptation to "leak" the famous name and thus assure themselves of much-needed sales.

The best bit of the article is the single comment right at the end. Make sure you read that far.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/15/jk-rowling-publishing-industry-unknown-writers