Posted on 07/14/2003 8:02:31 AM PDT by Jeff Head
No problem, I drive a lot and you can mark the first audio book sold. Ping me.
Best regards
Temple Owl
Can't wait to hear about it...I know you are going to be charged. You might consider putting a short indication of that on your web site...people are checking daily now.
That type of thing is a tough one to weed out.
"And a late salute to John D. McDonald, without whom there never would have been a Travis McGee."
Travis, I'd be glad to but for the fact that this is one of the major don't-do-this peeves of agents, asking them to look at a website. :-)
MM
The old way is all about exclusion and gatekeepers and the perks of power, with new authors being mere grist in their mill.
The big publishing houses love you just as much as a mother sea turtle loves her eggs. She lays 300, and never looks at them again. If two or three make it back to the beach as adults (best sellers) that is all she cares about. The fact that 297 are eaten along the way bothers the mother sea turtle not one bit.
And that is IF you are lucky enough to be one of the "annointed" who actually get a contract the traditional way! Zero promotion by the publisher, a miserly advance (against sales), 8% royalties, and a 60-90 day sit on the shelves of the chain bookstores. And like the baby turtles, if you are not one of the tiny percentage to make it, you are "killed" in the industry as a "failed author."
No thanks. If and when I talk to those guys, it will be on my terms, with several of them negotiating with me. Until then, I will command my destiny.
And why not, since promotion is left to the new author anyway? Why not make 50-80% on your books, instead of 8%, if you are going to be the one to promote it anyway? For what exactly are they earning their 92%, when most of your books will be sold on Amazon anyway? For the chance to have your books sit on a back bottom shelf for 90 days?
To me, 5th avenue is a sucker game, and not worth the candle.
Just remember to take what you find at any of these sites with a grain of salt until you figure out who really knows what they're talking about. And as is the case in any gathering of people, be it cyber or brick-and-mortar, remember that there are nice folks and there are jerks. Embrace the former. Ignore the latter.
The social interaction with other writers is indeed important. It really does help to know that you're not alone in the various difficulties and triumphs you'll encounter as a writer. Candid feedback is also an absolute must, and surprisingly hard to come by. There's NOTHING more harmful to a writer than everyone trying to "be nice" when what you really need is brutal honesty. You cannot fix what you don't know to be broken.
What kind of stuff do you like to write?
MM
Not trying to be discouraging in the least to you or Jeff or anyone else, but that's just the unvarnished truth. Self-published books command virtually zero respect in the industry because there is no verifiable quality control. The percentage of self-published books that ever get picked up by a traditional publisher is staggeringly tiny. Almost no review venue that matters will touch them. And with many agents and publishers, just having self-published is the death knell. I genuinely hope that you and Jeff and others prove to be among those rare exceptions, but that is the reality of the path you've chosen and it's not likely to change in the foreseeable future.
And BTW, while Amazon certainly sells a lot of books, their numbers are still DWARFED by brick-and-mortar sales. It's not even remotely close.
MM
Yet again I find myself expressing sincere thanks. You have given me quite a bit to explore.
Would you suggest getting any and all work copyrighted before showing it to anyone? I don't necessarily mean posting something on the web I mean even before I let anyone read a hard copy.
To answer your inquiry of what my work is like; so far my writing consists of short stories. They vary in exact topic and setting but the unifying theme is to illustrate mans' continuous struggle against nature, his own that is and Murphy's Law. The tales may be somewhat cynical, jaundiced even yet they are not without redeeming value or comic elements. In fact some have quite a bit of humor. Currently I am working on a detective story that is a morph between W.C. Fields and Film Noir. It also has a twisted ending that is unique as far as I know to mystery writing.
The shorts are an extension of something that has been on ice for 20 years. In my teens I wanted to get into film making. Later on in art school I started painting which I took to like a duck to water (as they say). By mid sophomore year I switched majors. Over the years I still had the interest in film though and made notes of offbeat characters and odd circumstances I encountered. Didn't know towards what end but I made notes just the same. Last winter I got the idea to start writing. The creative process is something I like very much and it just doesn't matter if I get published or not though I sure wouldn't mind if I did.
On another note I am currently working on a slightly different approach to a diet and exercise book which stems from pure commercial motives.
What kind of thrillers did you say you wrote? Crime, man against nature, supernatural, etc? Just curious.
best reagrds,
u89
Eventually my books will be sold there as well as by other venues. But I am not willing to beg ang plead and be put on the 2005 schedule for publishing, all for 8%. My subjects are too timely to risk being overtaken by events while waiting in line on the dinosaurs no-hurry publishing schedule.
I agree with you that self-publishing is a dead end if you don't have a careful plan, most critically including a product tailored to an unserved and subject-hungry niche target audience. Sometimes, the NYC houses miss these markets, for a variety of reasons, ideology among them. If a novel is tailored to meet the desires of that unserved audience, great success can, and has, followed. In the internet era, it is very possible for the author and the audience to find one another without merely hoping that a reader stumbles across his unrecognized name on the back bottom shelf at the local book store.
I hope that you do beat the baby sea turtle odds, and you are that one in twenty first time author who sells book number one off the shelves in your 90 day shot at success or failure. I simply don't want to wait until 2005 to find out if I am one of the 19 unpromoted book store flops, or the one who is successful. I don't want baby sea turtle odds, I want to control my destiny.
I hope you get lucky on 5th Avenue, but I prefer to make my luck. When I talk to 5th Avenue, it will be with an established track record, on my terms, including promotion gurantees in the contract etc.
We'll just have to see which publishing paradigm does better for each of us. I wish us both success.
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