Gloomy days for Indie publishing

Gloomy days for indies

Facebook is abuzz about posts from Nora Roberts and others who have revealed the plagiarised, ghosted, pirated scams going on in the world of publishing. The scams have now moved into audio where Audible pays on hours listened just as Amazon pays on pages read; scammers run "loop systems" where the book just plays for hours and hours and... consequently the pay-pool for genuine audio is reducing.

In retaliation, readers are saying that therefore any book offered for free or 99 cents is ghost-written and isn't worth tuppence. Yet many indie writers have, in the past, been advised to offer a 0.99p series leader as an enticement to bring readers into the entire series. The pundits said it was a solid marketing technique; they also advised offering the book for free for a while to encourage reviews and possibly ensure an Amazon ranking. 

Now readers are saying they will never look at 99 cents and free books again. This is a sad blow for the genuine indie writer and publisher, who works very hard to write every word of their offerings.

Marketing magic

"From the day I got the book deal I started marketing."

Lisa McMann has something to say about marketing her best selling book WAKE and I know I can learn from her. Catch her blog here

Nathan Bransford is talking about the same topic and he says "There's no such thing as "just an author" anymore, and I suspect there never was." (How that man keeps up with his day job I'll never know. His post has been up 2 hours and already there are 38 comments. For any newbie writer who has not discovered him, he is the man who must be read)

The bottom line is that however much we dislike marketing ourselves and our work, publishers are much more ready to put the money behind the author if the author is willing to work at marketing as well.

So now FAR AFTER GOLD is happily with a distributor who knows the business, it is time for me to start work. People can actually get the book now. I picked up a copy from my local library today. Imagine that! My book, the book I wrote, on the shelves in my local library! I feel faint with happiness.

The picture looks through the Debden valley towards Cragside. Armstrong's old iron bridge has been refurbished, repainted and opened up for people to walk across for the first time in a great many years. It trembles, rather like the modern Millenium pedestrian bridges, which is why it is rather blurry in the photograph.

Penrith again

Kathy Gale: What publishers want – and how to make them want you
Wise words from a former Senior Editor at Pan, Pan-MacMillan, Women’s Press, now a writing coach.
Publishers want :–

• An author who writes a book a year and sells loads, particularly one of the 12 titles picked by supermarkets. Facility for publishers to “grow” authors has gone now; writing coaches have stepped in.
  


• They want to know where your book fits in the market place. They need a clear idea so they can sell it on to retailers, distributors etc ie “heartrending love story set in Regency Times”
  


• Writing of a new or contemporary style
  


• Must be able to write what publishers want rather than what you want to write * Misery memoirs/family sagas are now on the decline with publishers, though they still sell to the public. Talk to agents/read trade press, best seller lists, etc for new trends. Read new authors and discover what it is that is different
  


• *Don’t write cynically for a specific market, but write your book with an eye on the market. Try for something special ie psychological accuracy and depth. Describe place, characters, evoke atmosphere – don’t let pace override everything else.
  


• Don’t believe all the rules you hear, especially about length, or not starting with a dream, a secondary character, or a building
  


• Be professional in your MS and covering letter. Don’t indent paragraphs but leave a space between them. Single quotes are more popular now. Include a couple of paragraphs on plot, genre, comparisons with other authors (careful not to sound conceited!) and that you hope to write more in the same vein, with continuing characters
  


• Author appearance does matter, no matter what they say, so for a meeting dress bright and less than formal but not to the point of eccentricity. If you are interesting, intelligent and “promotable” it all helps. Showing yourself as self-respecting and assertive but not as TROUBLE is good, too.
  

Penrith, expected

I wish I had better photos of the speakers at the conference. I'm still getting used to my tiny new camera which requires a very steady hand compared to the bigger, heavier types I'm used to.

Anita Burgh, right, gave a very thorough talk on how to woo agents and publishers purely through the way you approach them with your submission.

Unhappily my pictures of the M&B girls Jenny Hutton and Meg Lewis did not come out well even though they were both so young and attractive. They told us they want diversity and variety, that too many people were sending in submissions using the same old basic plots. They advised "listening" to our characters and discovering new twists on conventions and conflicts.

Internal conflict should be the main focus of the story. It took me a long time to understand what M&B meant by IC; now I understand it to be the opposing forces within each character, whereas

misunderstandings, for example, are external conflict. An internal conflict might be fear of rejection opposed to a need for security, for example. The emotional repercussions of a traumatic past are what the reader wants - not descriptions of the traumatic past itself.

Make your stories work on a character driven basis. Start with the character, chart their journey, mark their growth and change, stay with the character rather than the plot.

Penrith, unexpected

It may not be what you expect from a writers conference, especially a romantic writers conference, but walking early in the morning can be rewarding.
When I saw Sue Moorcroft's pic, here I knew we had been photographing the same horse. This is in the mare's own little world at the end of the lane beyond the tennis courts and the football pitches, with Blencathra (I think!) in the distance.

The fields were full of activity, too. Hares speeding across the meadows; not a common sight these days, now that hares are on the list of endangered species.

The conference was informative, exciting and tiring. Some familiar faces, many new ones - and the noise! If I ever had the idea that authors were shy, retiring people, then this gathering blew that idea right out of the water!

Coming from the north-east of the UK, so very close to the Border with Scotland, I don't often make the trip to London. It is expensive and to make anything of it, demands an overnight stay, so it is especially good that the conference comes north and gives us northern writers the chance to make the acquaintance of all the names I see so regularly on ROMNA .

Rachel Natanson gave us a insight into the complex workings of People's Friend where so much change has gone on lately. The audience remains the same - strong, independant minded ladies of a certain age who want stories that feature believable characters perhaps caught up in unfavourable circumstances. The readers do not wish to be shocked or offended or have to worry about leaving the magazine lying around where small hands may find, read and be hurt by it. The Pocket Novel word count has gone up to 50k and still features youngish heroines, whereas the shorter stories like romance stories about older leadies - ie over 50!