There was a discussion at a forum to which I do not have access right now, on whether indie publishing means you didn’t “make the cut” for traditional.
Sigh.
Do I have to revisit this? Apparently I do.
If I had the keys to the forum on me – I don’t. I’m away from home and don’t have access to a lot of stuff from this computer – I’d go in and point out it totally depends on what you’re talking about and what you want to do.
Note right at the onset that I publish both Indie and Baen. And that a lot of the stuff I intend to do Indie is stuff Baen wouldn’t touch (for its main publishing house, though I’ll try to sell it to webscriptions for those who read that way.)
What is the reason for this divided strategy?
Would I stop publishing with Baen so I can go fully Indie? Not only no, but h*ll no. And it’s not just because Baen gives me upfront money, though for a woman with two sons in college this is not sneezable-at (totally a word, shuddup.)
Baen has name recognition, and when you’re a wise, (trust me, on this) Latina, with a degree in literature and various odd opinions, you need that little rocket ship on the spine to convince sane people you’re not another feminist glittery hoo-ha of profound boredom.
Baen, to put it bluntly, takes me where I want to go with far less effort than I would have to employ to get there on my own.
This is because Baen – all praise to Jim Baen and Toni Weisskopf as his successor – has taken great care to build a cohesive brand. If you like a Baen book, chances are you’ll like the others. This makes it easy for readers to go “ooh, it has the rocket, I’ll read it.”
Do other brands in science fiction or elsewhere enjoy the same name recognition? Well, for a while bantam had a reputation as being more high brow than the rest but – nota bene – this was a reputation MOSTLY among writers, not the reading public. If you ask the reading public if a book is random penguin or Tor or… they’ll look at you blankly, with good reason.
For several years now, the other houses have made it a point of buying and disposing of in two books writers who didn’t miraculously become bestsellers with no publicity and no support, while cultivating and making artificial bestsellers out of a bunch of things with little natural audience.
What this means is that their print runs have shrunk and their trademark does not encourage anyone to buy.
So, let’s suppose you’re not writing something that fits the Baen trademark. And please, don’t tell me that the Baen trademark is “quality” – yes, it is that, but there’s more to it. Baen is plot driven fantasy and science fiction. It can have characters and worldbuilding too, and it usually does, but the Baen brand means a certain… feel. That’s why it’s a brand. Look, say The Man In The High Castle, which I like is NOT Baen. It lacks the pacing or the clarity of plot. The same for say Dark They Were And Golden Eyed.
As you guys know my random mind can produce Baen stuff and non Baen stuff, including VERY non-Baen stuff: mystery, romance, pseudo-near-literary, whatever.
For years, I gave my non-Baen stuff to other houses (okay sold – waggles hand) and I’m no longer doing that. Why not?
Mostly because I wouldn’t trust them – contracts, reporting, etc – further than I could throw them. I’m waiting till they either pull their heads out of their rearward facing orifices OR go under and something emerges to replace them.
But it’s more than that. FOR YEARS I worked for them and got ulcers. If you think there isn’t a political line, you’re nuts. I had to toe it and keep my mouth shut. Given the force with which my mouth tends to open – explosively – the unrelieved pressure was giving me falling hair and toenails. (You only think I’m joking.)
And beyond all that, let’s be honest here, my indie books net me a lot more money in the long run, if not upfront. So… What are the other publishers not Baen doing that I should give them that 97% of my potential income? I’ve already said that at least in my opinion they have no name brand recognition.
So, what are they doing?
Oh, they’re putting on a cover and putting it on shelves. Um… the first is dubious (is the cover going to be the same for almost every book in the series and make it impossible to find new ones? Because at least one house did that) and the second any more very iffy, because I once had six books out in one year and not ONE made it onto a bookshop in CO, and that was before the current contraction in shelf space. And yes, all these books were by major publishers.
So, I bring out my non-Baen stuff indie, and some of it I admit might be Baen stuff, but it’s experimental “let’s throw it at the wall and see if it sticks” stuff like Witchfinder, but marginal enough that I don’t want to metaphorically clog the pipelines with it. I prefer to send to Baen the books I KNOW they’ll be interested in, like the sequels to DST, or MIGHT be interested in like The Brave And The Free, or MIGHT be interested in like World War Shifter (Hurray for the Red Dragon.)
“But Sarah,” you say “You are a professional. You sell other novels.”
Sigh.
Guys, the truth is that there are novels of mine I couldn’t give away for love or money and that only sold after my first novel sold. And then they sold professional. BUT until I had contacts I couldn’t give them away.
It’s not just QUALITY that sells a book. It’s hitting at the right time, when you have the book they want. I have at least one series that didn’t sell to a given publisher because they’d just bought a “similar” one. If I’d sent it a week before, the other author would have been disappointed.
And I can tell you that the people I’m mentoring now, I recommend they don’t even SUBMIT traditional until they have the kind of book Baen might like. People like Kate Paulk, or Amanda Green or, yes, Cedar Sanderson. Or, oh, yeah, my sons. Because NO ONE deserves the “traditional publishers” (which Baen never was) right now.
In the future, maybe. But right now are the big bumblers (the big four and the boobsie twins, random-penguin) worth signing away your book for ten years, maybe forever? Oh h*ll no. I wouldn’t let my worst enemy sign up with one of the traditional.
But Sarah, you’ll say, isn’t it true that all self-and-indie published books are drek?
Eh. No more than traditionally published books are all drek.
First of all drek is a highly subjective measure. Second this is why Kindle (and most of the others) give you samples. You download the sample. The ABSOLUTE drek in indie, like the absolute drek in slush announces itself on the first paragraph in horrible spelling and terrible formatting.
“But Sarah, I’ll have to go through hundreds of books to find one I like.” Um… not in my experience. Look… Most of the really bad ones don’t stay up there long, or have so many one-star reviews you would only download them for funsies.
So, of the indies you might consider – not all uniformely one star reviews – and in whatever you’re reading at the time (Oh, please. Sometimes you feel like an elf, sometimes you don’t!) you might have to look at three or four before you find one you want to read and settle in.
Are you going to stand there and tell me to my face that you NEVER in your life went through that many while browsing in a bookstore? Lying is a sin, you know?
It’s just now the browsing is in your house and in your own time. And yes, sometimes you’ll buy a dud. Of COURSE you never did that traditional right? Which is why there aren’t book-shaped indents on the walls. (Of course you can’t throw the kindle. It gets expensive.)
So, is indie all uniformly drek? Smile when you say that. A lot of my friends and relatives are mostly indie, or will be (younger son.) And I think it’s the best decision for them. And I will read (and finish) their stuff.
Besides, writers like Larry Correia went indie first. Before anyone bought him. Does that mean he was Drek?
Oh, please tell him so, and let me take pictures while you do it. Better, let me take the movie of what Mrs. Correia does to you. Just YouTube hits would be worth it.
Seriously – if a writer is so lazy he will uniformly cast a lot of good books by the way side because one of the clown car publishers (and no, that doesn’t include Baen) didn’t pick them up… they deserve to be deprived of decent reads.
I yield to no one in my devotion to the Baen imprint both as a writer and a reader. And maybe someday Baen will publish the world, including Romance and Mystery. Until then, there’s indie. And for those odd SF/F that don’t quite fit the Baen imprint, there’s indie.
And this is why I walk between worlds, and I refuse to look down on those who don’t fit the Baen imprint and are making their own way. They might not be Baen-style, but it doesn’t make them bad quality and heaven knows as a very eclectic reader I find room for them in my reading list.
I completely understand if your ENTIRE reading list is taken up with Baen – a vast portion of mine is – but if you have room for other books outside that particular rubric, consider indie. There are gems out there, waiting to be discovered.
According To Hoyt 
I have no intention of ever going traditional. Well, ok, there’s the one book I’m writing for Baen…they just don’t know it yet! Besides, in my mind Baen is hardly traditional. The Free Library, the Bar, those were the things that brought me in, and once I discovered the books, I stayed around. But as a writer, it would be the death of my goal (to make money from writing) to seek traditional publication. Would they buy my writing? Well, I’ve sold some short stories. Poor, sacrifical lambs, led to the slaughter of building a name. I have more out there strutting their stuff in the market. (just a little leg, dear, we’re not *that* kind of author).
OK, one more bad analogy, and I’m out of here, I have a need for coffee before I go soak up more knowledge from Sarah and Amanda. If I’m crap, YAY!
You see, I grew up gardening and helping my parents with a small farm. Crap is a good thing. You fertilize with it, for one thing. You build good dirt. So my (written) crap makes my reader’s imaginations grow, lush and rich and green… Ok, I said it was a bad analogy. But still, one man’s crap is another man’s compost.
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At least when I was a kid Bantam did kind of have a brand, it was Louis L’amour. As a kid I used to scan the book shelves of thrift stores and used book stores looking for the rooster, because at least nine out of ten of those used books you saw wearing the rooster were written by Louis L’amour. Nowadays only two publishers I am aware of have a brand, Baen and Harlequin. I may not read Harlequin, but they have a brand that many women look specifically for when scanning shelves, and their brand is distinctive enough that I know not to bother reading title or author on the spine when I see it.
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It’s too bad you don’t read Harlequin. Yes, most of the books are Romance Porn, but they have some good ones. They also are like many formula westerns. Mental fluff (filler if you prefer), and “good” mindless C–p. Good for reading when you want to turn the mind off, and just veg with a book. Besides which they teach decent writing technique (and they *pay*). :-)
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Urk. Harlequin is known to be among the worst of the traditional publishers as far a contract terms go. They were inspirational for romance genre writers largely moving to indie. Harlequin “pays” but not very much.
I do read romance, but when I find something I like, I look for that author’s work indie. And usually I find a lot of it. If I like an author’s work, I want that author to be well compensated with a large portion the cover price I’m paying for the work. I don’t just want them getting token pennies.
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I don’t know how well Harlequin pays or not but the sort-of numbers I heard years ago for an advance were in the 5K range. (Take that for what my memory and rumor make it worth.) And of course, on a category romance, that’s all you’re going to get. That’s for 50-70K words at the most and you figure to make a living at it you’d need to write another one every couple months. No back-list ever. You’re out for that month and that’s the end of it.
What e-books have given romance is an infinite back-list.
I’m not hanging around so much with romance writers any more so I haven’t heard any rumors about contracts, but it seems to me that having a back-list in e-books changes the landscape profoundly. If an author can put out a category title one month and sell a copy of nearly everything she’s ever written (assuming that the contract isn’t a complete disaster) it might make sense for established authors to stay in the category books instead of moving up to non-category (generally twice as fat) novels. A writer might even, possibly, earn out the advance. A side effect of that may be that category isn’t the break-in opportunity for new writers that it used to be.
One thing it did seem to me, way back when, was that the RWA seemed entirely in bed with the romance publishers. Maybe I’m wrong about that, too, but I have little confidence that anyone is out there making sure that the publishers are issuing fair or even sane contracts.
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There was a long period where Harlequin insisted that you write under a pseudonym which they copyrighted, so you couldn’t take your fans with you when you left. The only concession the writers got was that the pseudonyms would not be reused, as others have been.
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I have, as I stated a few days ago, read some Harlequin, but not as a regular fare. I found some good readable stuff (yes fluff, but readable) under the Intrigue imprint, but found the straight-up romances virtually unreadable due to the fact that I despise stupid characters, and I despise blatant inaccuracies and falsehoods. Both of which I found in abundance (without looking for them, just the ones that jumped out at me). I was reading them more in an attempt to learn how to incorporate believable romance into a story than for my own enjoyment, but found those lines (Harlequin has a practically uncountable number of imprints) of romantic suspense/mystery or some of the paranormal romances (and yes they are generally fairly ‘porny’ but some of them at least have a plot) both better researched (again, SOME of them) and more enjoyable (or at least not wall-dent worthy).
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Bantam also did a lot of WWII memoirs and battle accounts that I loved, back before “military history” and “military biography” became [grave expression] serious academic genres.
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Yeah, I got a couple of those, probably picked up while looking for Louis L’amour’s. :)
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I’d love to write for Baen, but I know I’m not ready yet; the short story I’m currently toying with is filled with amateurish mistakes simply from not having exercised the writing muscle in so many years. I’ve decided instead to first run a similar route to Brad Torgerson, get a major contest under my belt and maybe sell off a couple short stories (Since that’s what I’ve got the most time for right now) so that later I’ll be ready with the right stuff to put out The Big One. Which, of course, I’m still debating how I’d want to take it–via Baen or just straight up Indie.
And you’re quite right; the drek can be spotted very, very quickly. The bad ones reveal themselves almost immediately out of the gate…unlike those miserable pieces you find in the bookstore which made it past the Gatekeepers only to discover you could have written better at three years old.
The new system seems to be more author AND reader friendly, which will be a good thing, overall.
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Reading recent The Business Rusch posts at Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s blog one can easily get the idea that traditional publishers believe that authors are all quite stupid. It’s almost criminal self-sabotage to submit only to traditional publishers. The contract terms they offer to authors are truly horrendous.
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My aplogies, it’s here actually.
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I’m pretty sure I know the forum of which you speak. Yeah. That one angers me because it touches on all my insecurities as a writer. At once. “I’m not going to buy crap.” Well, I don’t write crap. That I’m aware of. Shoot, do I write crap? Have people been lying to me? I know my covers aren’t great (though that one did make me pretty happy, and my editor likes it) but how would I know? Isn’t that what we always say? Get somebody else to read it, because you’re too close. And when a fan-of-a-particular-brand says, “nope: too much crap, I’m not reading anything self-published,” doesn’t that – in all planes of reality EVERYWHERE – say that all people who like what I like (as a fan-of-that-particular-brand, myself) will look at my work and turn up their collective nose? And then won’t all my professional friends finally turn on my and denounce me as the hack wannabe I know I am? I’ll be stripped of my relationships and my imagination and cast into the outer dark where there are gelflings and gnashing of teeth. I’ll be left without a friend (friend? Friend? FRIEND?!) in the world, a hope of putting food on the table and all my characters will shun me. Forever.
Like I said: hits ALL the insecurities. Everytime someone asks, “no, what are you really doing for a living?” Everytime my parents mention a conversation in which someone asks them if their son is still playing with that writing thing. The worst – absolute worst – is the trad-pubbed authors who make offhand comments about self-, indie-, author-publishing as though it truly is the cesspool of the world, responsible for all that is wrong with society.
Anger helps. As does reminding myself that none of my awesome friends started out as they are now. And that most of them suffer from the same delusions I do. And that I have the time I need to get everything in place.
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The “indie is the cesspool of the publishing world” alleged thought process, is the new racism. Let’s start calling it publishedism. “I’m published by a ‘real’ publishing house, so I must be really great.” Steven King (and I really _don’t_ care for most of what he writes), would be big, even without the marketing his books get. I’ve actually bought/borrowed from libraries stuff that wasn’t even *bad* cr-p (and I’ll read almost anything). Stuff that made the Edsel seem a paragon of intelligence. (Note: IIRC the Edsel sold, IIRC, 10 Thousand cars total, with heavy backing by Ford, and even the Chevy Volt did better.)
So, even over the last 40 years, Trad. Publishing has produced more C–p than the top 10 cities in the U.S. _combined_. The old “Vanity Press market” is the only group that came as close. Indie is not “Vanity publishing,” although it can be.
The saving grace is twofold. 1) No one will buy cr-p, knowing that it’s Cr-p. and it doesn’t cost the writer more than a small amount. 2) This is the real kicker, Social Media. If you are halfway decent, and known, you can sell at least a couple of hundred books. When my friend Michael Z. Williamson sold “Freehold,” we all figured he could at least manage 1,000 copies. (NOTE: I’ve known Mike and his wife Gail, over 20 years. I’m also Morrigan’s adoptive grandfather.) Last I heard (2012?), it was in a third printing of _10K_. (Yes, it’s that good.) But, there is a joke involved. When I hear someone ask. “Will you autograph this?” I always add. “If you give him $5 more, he _won’t_ autograph it.” He’s also on his *14th* Facebook ban. :-) He _markets_ every chance he gets, which is why he’s so successful, aside from being a good writer.
Vanity publishing was proof the marketing adage. “You can’t polish a t–d.” Neither can you market it. Now, the word can fly around the world, before the finest marketing campaign can put on its shoes. Cr-p books can sit in a digital warehouse forever, and no but the deluded author will care. When you get a decent (3 figure) royalty check for indie published, make a copy to wave in their face.
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On target here. My book went up on Amazon in April, and I posted to my Facebook friends. They apparently bought a few, enough to keep it up in the ranks long enough for a few other people to see it and buy, and on and on. Amazon has sent me several checks over the last 5 months, adding up to about what I would expect from a small advance from an old publisher.
As Sarah says, I am not wasting time with any house except Baen. The reviews are good enough on Amazon, people waiting for book 2 and saying so, and the $ good enough that I don’t see the point in spending years writing queries to companies that aren’t doing anything for me that I can’t do for myself.
The one thing I miss, is a hard-nosed editor to force me to do rewrites where needed.
“Freehold” got me started on Williamson. He is on my list of regular reliables. I am pretty much guaranteed a good story if I see his name on it (one was so-so, not a bad record). Also, he got me to notice the Baen label. I added up his name with the names of several other authors I liked and discovered they were all published by Baen. Made shopping a lot easier.
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You’re in luck, Tom: several of us here are editors of one sort and another. I am, IMNSHO, pretty dang good, and I know I’m not the best that hangs out here. Others may tap their shingle, or Our Beloved Hostess may have someone she recommends. Shoot one of us an email and let us know what you’re looking for – we love helping folks out. I may be a shameless mercenary, but I chose this field because I love doing it, too; I know others are the same.
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Appreciate the offer greatly, but the problem is more my personality, than a shortage of editors. I know, and my crit partners hammered home what I needed to do. But, there is no reason for me to make the changes if there is no immediate pushback. In that particular novel, there are two distinct scenes with problems. One scene appears unnecessary for the plot except possibly as background worldbuilding. It is necessary to the whole story arc, if you consider possible sequels, but not in the stand-alone first book.
An editor with the power to deny my book could use blackmail to make me revise that portion, and the book would be better. But me, personally, publishing as indie, will not make that change. Indie requires a different sort of discipline than trad. Someone, maybe it was Steven King, said you have to kill your babies. Get rid of those scenes that, even though you love them, just don’t help the book. And it is a great scene. I just have not been able to kill it.
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Hmm. That is a problem. One of you writing veterans want to chime in with some advice?
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My Dad started out as a reporter, and he often made the comment that he hated having his stuff gone over by the editor, joking that “each word cut was like a child lost”.
But, if you have a section that doesn’t fit you can ash-can it, which you don’t want to do, or you can save it back for the next story in that universe, or you can do what Larry Niven has been known to do, which is to flesh it out and sell it as a short to promote the main work or series, or you can do it as one of those prologue thingies at the front of the book so browsers can get a meaty appetizer that also works to show your greater world-build.
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Eh, whole “kill your babies” bit? More a suggestion than a commandment. Besides, F/SF readers always enjoy good worldbuilding.
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They count on it to hit all our insecurities. Because each person who goes indie, puts out a book that clearly is *not* crap, and succeeds (in some way) hits all of THEIR insecurities. And in the end, the people with the “Indie = Crap” mindset have even more insecurities then we do. Which is really saying something, because I rank my own insecurities up there with the best of them.
I love your “[is] their son still playing with that writing thing” comment. I was at a niece’s wedding earlier this summer and brought along the CreateSpace paperbacks of my own two indie books. It was kind of surreal, because for the first time in my life, my own family took me seriously as a writer. All the years with actual agents and actual interest from traditional publishers and actual screenplays in development with producers, and those two little self-published paperbacks were what finally did it in their eyes. No one can tell me the world isn’t changing after that.
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I gave up talking about writing years ago because pretty much everybody I mentioned it to asked if I had gotten anything published. Or, alternatively, entered any contests and how well had I done (well, no, and never sold anything either but I got this nice letter from Marion Zimmer Bradley once…)?
So it became this very private (and somewhat shameful) thing.
I have started talking about it again now when I have some indie stories out, and am even selling some. But here, where I live, it’s still treated as a ‘she has a hobby, how nice’ rather than anything that might, in time, produce anything real (and I’m not sure how much money would be taken as ‘real’, but I have a suspicion that getting an offer from a ‘real’ publisher probably would count). So maybe this will never become a career for me, who knows, but people who go to some school to study something they will probably never do for a living can be taken seriously, and I rather think of this as at least the equivalent of an apprenticeship, so that ‘oh, hobby, good for you’ treatment can be a tad irritating.
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I knew I was out there as a writer, when I began thinking of myself as a writer who did a little office work on the side to pay the bills … instead of an office admin who did a little writing on the side.
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I think I’m getting there. Maybe. But I still feel somewhat embarrassed about the whole thing.
And about what I said, I didn’t just give up talking about writing, I also gave up writing for a long time. I did write some during the 80’s, up to sending a few short stories to USA markets (and boy was that a chore before the internet, finding out how and where and so on), including ‘Sword and Sorceress’. Hence the letter, and MZB did give me some hints as to what I should have done with that short story in order to turn it into something maybe publishable, only I didn’t figure out that maybe I could have rewritten that story and resend it, just accepted it as a nice rejection letter. But I got discouraged after a while and figured it just wasn’t for me.
Unfortunately the characters still kept coming, and I made up stories for them (with them? Yep, occasionally it has been close to taking dictation too), just didn’t write them down. Until the pressure got bad enough that I had to start again. And then there was the internet. And then the indie revolution. That didn’t leave too many excuses why not to try.
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And hey, the fact that one of the first stories I send out, back then, got me a full page long personal rejection letter with helpful advice and encouragement could be seen as a bit of a bragging point, right? Only I didn’t know that then. :)
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Yep, among your own kind (writers), that’s definitely a bragging point.
I’ve noticed there’s a definite difference in how people treat Calmer Half. When he was saying “I’m a writer” before we got the first book out – a lot of “Ah, so that’s your retirement hobby” to the response. Now, when he says “My third book just came out,” they congratulate him and take it as a serious thing. I don’t think people care much which press, they just look at a professional-quality cover on a printed book, and say Hey! A real book! He’s not just like the waitress who’s “really a singer” and the taxi driver who’s “really a drummer in his band.” (We’re in Nashville. We can’t turn around in public without running into hopeful musicians filling other jobs and competing for their big break.)
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As far as I understand also the ebooks are taken more seriously there than here, but right now I only have ebooks, and to most people here they are still bit of an enigma. Maybe I can start getting different reactions once I get mine also on paper.
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I guess one of the big draws with the old system for new writers might be the sense of instant affirmation being accepted by a publisher still gives.
When you do it on your own waiting for the sales to start happening can take a long time, and during that time there may be the nagging suspicion that you are making a fool of yourself, your are not really good enough and that is why they are not happening and maybe those who do read you are making fun of your lousy writing and if you are getting any reputation at all it is as the new Bulwer-Lytton. But if your submission to a publishing house gets accepted, hey, those professionals think you are good enough so you really have to be good enough, right? Right? Doesn’t matter what anybody says you did get accepted, by a professional, so you can always lean on that even if you find out that somebody did compare you to that Bulwer-Lytton guy…
So yes, that route has its temptation, still.
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I still think of myself as a retiree that writes to please me. I’ve also begun to see how I need to improve what I write, if I’m going to be able to share it with others — especially if I ask for money from them!
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Heck– I wonder if I write crap and then I compare it with some of the real newbies and I say… maybe not. ;-) Go to Helium or some of the content sites (bubblews) and look at the short stories there. Then compare… if you are doing better then– yep you are not writing crap. There are some writers there who do write some good stuff.
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Well, my raw non-fiction won an international award. My fiction gets bought and people say they are waiting for the next volume. So . . . perhaps it ain’t Ye Great Supernovel, but it ain’t crap.
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Dave,
Until recently ALL my parents ever asked me was “when are you going to stop playing at writing and get a real job — and I AM traditionally published. Not to mention making as much as I could have made out of any job I could get. But, oh, no.
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Yes, indeed. Like I said: hits me in all the right places. And none of the – admittedly minor – accolades I’ve received (you jerk, you kept me up well past midnight, etc.) feel “real.” Getting paid, now, and getting paid enough to live on. Pretty sure that’ll feel real.
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Yes, I remember reading the advice Harlan Ellison once (maybe apocryphal? maybe wrong characters?) told J. Michael Straczynski when JMS asked how to get published: “Stop writing crap”
When I first read that, I smacked my forehead, said “That’s it! I’m writing crap. I’ll stop now.”
Or the old publishing guidelines that used to say “We’re looking for *good* science fiction.” Because otherwise you would unload your crap stories on them, and they’d have to spare the time to shove a form letter in the SASE. The horror.
What’s odd is that when I wrote my first complete story (age 12, a Nancy Drew ripoff–er, homage–my mother thought was wonderful) I wasn’t writing crap. But somehow I devolved, and now write worse crap than ever.
Fortunately, there are people out there who have both money and a perverse taste for crap.
You know, I’m old enough to feel like I was swearing through this entire comment. Am I right? Is “crap” still a swear word?
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yes, but carp isn’t, and here I use carp a lot.
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So “carp” does double duty as swear word and ammunition.
I shall remember.
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I’d call it a descriptive euphemism, at worst.
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The thing that writers like me, who are more comfortable coloring outside of the lines, have to remember is that while being unsuited for a particular publisher’s list is no guarantee that a book is drek, it’s also no guarantee that it’s a work of genius.
Fitting into the overall marketing plan of publishing house and quality, as you say, are largely unrelated. Because my own work isn’t likely to interest a traditional publisher it’s harder for me to judge its quality objectively. It is possible to be both original and bad, after all.
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I’ve thought very seriously about what I would do, if one of my books (Truckee, maybe – which is still the most popular and best-selling, or the Trilogy, or even the Lone Ranger reboot) should ever become wildly, wildly popular, to the point of serious agent and trad-publisher interest. Would I be tempted by a payment with a LOT of 0’s on it? Well, yeah, I would be tempted – because then I could concentrate on writing, deposit the checks, and leave the marketing and the rest of it to experts … but I wouldn’t be tempted for very long. I’d be in the hands of people – editor, designer, publicist and whatever – whose primary loyalty is to their corporation, not me. Should any of my books do hit big, I would just hire an editor, designer, cover artist, publicist and accountant – all people whose primary interest and loyalty would be to me. There are a lot of good free-lance people out there, and some of them I have worked with before, and some that I know are good, but I just can’t afford their services.
Yet.
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Self-published/Indie = Not making the cut/Crap
I learned a long time ago that if you let the other side define the terms, they’ve already won the argument.
Hey, I’m beating my way back into fiction writing, and if I publish either Indie or E-book, I’ll be happy. With Baen, I’d be ecstatic. But that’s in the future. The point is, when people are throwing out disparaging comments, that’s usually an indication of their own insecurities, and if you start out by agreeing with their terms, they don’t have to go to the effort of building a rational argument. Which they haven’t got.
In the future I’ll definitely be asking this crowd for good markets, with maybe links to samples so an idea can be garnered of my writing. But that is in the future. And I’m definitely interested in Indie/ebook.
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There was a time when self published and vanity published were very close cousins if not fraternal twins. There was still the occasional odd tome that broke out and took off from word of mouth, but those were few and far between simply because the publishing houses owned the distribution system and had a lock on the trade publications.
I do recall two notable books that as I recall started indie well before e-books were even a gleam in anyone’s eye. Possum Living and Unintended Consequences were big sellers through mail order because both appealed to certain subculture groups with their own communications networks.
So, the trick, if it can be called that, is and I believe always has been to write a good story and get the word out to the buying public. Where traditional publishers once owned the venue with a few outliers occasionally slipping past, by failing to recognize the changing communications environment they have dropped the ball and ensured their eventual demise.
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If somebody wants to cut himself off from 90% of all new books and short stories, and let other people in New York define his entire reading list, that’s his privilege. It’s sort of like living in a hole and eating rats, but fine.
You should probably ask him what he’s doing reading all those self-published Internet posts, though.
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Suburbanshee I am stealing that comment. :-)
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I am pleased to have been theftworthy. :)
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To me the Baen brand has a very Heinlein flavor to it. The writer tells a story with characters, love em or hate em, that the reader can by Ghod relate to. And that very broad brush does extend to encompass the likes of both Lackey and Ringo, so it’s really not at all about subject matter, it’s all about the storytellers and their craft.
And Jim wasn’t above stirring the pot a bit. One need only consider Ringo’s Ghost series, not SF by any means, adventure with a BDSM flavor, but tight well crafted stories none the less. Well, except for that last stinker, but we won’t go there.
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Jumping on your sideline, that last Paladin of Shadows book was indeed a stinker. You could use more emphatic words, even. And now it looks like the next in the series is going to be co-authored (read: Ringo outline, somebody else wordsmithing), again. *big sigh*
I’m aware that Baen has used this technique more than once. Allowing a new author to work with an established author’s outline and get some marketing recognition. I even like the program. But that’s the wrong series to hand off to somebody else. It takes Ringo’s hand to keep it readable, because without that particular touch the characters devolve into fairly horrible people.
Sorry. I went there. It was kinda knee-jerk.
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That’s not necessarily bad, Ringo plotting and handing it off. There are a couple of books that were written that way that I loved, even though I didn’t much warm to the co-writer when he wrote his own stuff. (Not Kratman if you are wondering)
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No, you’re absolutely right, there’s some good stuff in the Legacy of the Aldenata universe done that way. I frequently enjoy when authors let others play in their universe.
But with the PoS universe, I’m not sure anybody but Ringo can redeem Mike in the writing.
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Do keep in mind two comments Ringo has made: One, the next book will be co-authored by someone else, and Two, he does wish he had done a major rewrite like he did with Honor of the Clan with Tiger. He also seems quite convinced that people won’t have a problem with the next co-author.
On the subject of co-authors using more established authors’ playgrounds, keep in mind that the Empire of Man series is pretty much entirely David’s universe, and John does most of the character portrayals. I’d say that worked out pretty well. As have any number of other projects with the same method, which is why they stick with it.
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Yes, I’m a fan of the process (except wherein any further Empire of Man novels are delayed waiting on Weber to work up an outline). And I trust they’ll continue as it has frequently produced some good books.
However, I remain unconvinced regarding the next PoS. I’ll read it, and we’ll see, but I have doubts.
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I’m guessing Doc Travis then, since all the others were co-authored with women, except for Williamson (who only did one, not a couple) and Weber, who was actually the plotter in that series.
Personally I have found some of the Doc Travis solo novels I like very much (the One Day series) while a couple others I have tried are meh. But there are a quite a few of his I have never read, so I don’t know how I would like him overall if I read all his stuff.
As a general rule I prefer the books written by a lone author over the books that co-author has written*. On the other hand co-written books where I know and like one author I can generally be assured are readable, and give me a chance to judge whether I will like a junior authors solo work. There are exceptions to this, The Hero was pretty meh, to me and caused me not to try Williamson for a long time. When I did however I found that I liked his solo work very much, and thought everything either author had written (to include Tiger**) except possibly John’s There Will be Dragons series, was far superior to The Hero.
*The Empire of Man is a glowing exception to this rule
**I agree with most of the comments here on Tiger, although with less fervor, I viewed it as meh, and spent most of the book waiting for the good part. I will probably never reread it, and am keeping it mostly because I am somewhat of a completest and don’t want to be missing one book of a series. On the other hand I read it with only one instance of it threatening to hit the wall, and didn’t struggle to finish it like I did the There Will be Dragons books.
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Baen should get Robert to write one of those. Why? Well… have you read his Operation Santa? Now imagine that crossed with a Ringo outline. When you stop getting the shakes and giggling at once…
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Ninja nun meets Ghost … the mind boggles…..
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Doesn’t it?
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Maybe “boggles” is not the right word…..
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I am repelled, yet curious.
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Of course, if someone actually decided to do this, my son would kill me… :-P
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Your son would kill you if John Ringo offered him the opportunity to cowrite the next Ghost book?
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Yeah. Other books no, but Ghost probably. My son is a little prudish.
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He could write the story of when Mike gets religion. All that angst as he struggles to learn to do the right thing instead of follow his instincts whenever he meets a decent looking chick. ;)
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The co-author thing can work and work well. The Cally books with Julie Cockrane were outstanding and the stuff John’s done with Doc Travis are excellent reads as well.
I do understand the series of events that lead to Tiger being released, but still consider it a terrible mistake to have let the book out as written as IMHO it left a black mark on both Baen and John, and was a disservice to loyal fans of the Ghost series.
OTOH, it did fit quite well with the PoS acronym didn’t it.
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I really enjoyed the Cochrane and Taylor collabs, and I hunger for more.
I’ve missed out on any discussion of what lead to Tiger getting out the door the way it did, guess I’ll have to go research. But I’m in full agreement about the black marks and the disservice.
And, HAH! Yes, fits the acronym far to well.
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I’m going to have to disagree with your Cally books comment. I love Ringo, I own or did own (unfortunate occurrence with a storage unit) every novel the man has ever published, but yeah… The Cally novels just didn’t provide the mass combat and raw adrenaline I love about the rest of the series.
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I liked them all except Cally’s War, which was the one I was most looking forward to. Not that it was a BAD book, just a terrible letdown and disappointment from what I was expecting.
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Of course, the first thing any writer must do is finish the story. Without that, the author is worth nothing.
It’s Heinlein’s Rule #2.
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yes.
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Okay– I already went the traditional route with my poetry. I was published in some respectable literary journals and didn’t make a cent. Also, I had a literary publisher decide NOT to publish a chapbook because I liked to write in forms at the time. He did say that if I wrote a full chapbook in free verse, he would want to publish. So no, I didn’t at the time. I wasn’t writing free verse then.
As for my stories, my hubby finally convinced me that I should let them go– and I first started putting them on a blog, then a content site, and now finally on indie. I couldn’t get anyone in traditional publishing to read a paragraph, which made me wonder if I was a crap writer. (different than a person who writes crap– as in crap all the way through). I decided when I read a few self-published authors that I needed to do it myself. I can be a control freak sometimes if I am feeling good. So traditional publishing is off my radar and I am happy to see it gone.
If Baen asked for something I might be excited– but right now I am lucky to get a few short stories out and my poetry.
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From a writer’s perspective the possibilities of the current indie market thrill me. I’ve read far too much over the years about traditional to ever subject myself to that. And so, in fact, I did not. If I want to be abused by elitism and arrogance I’ll hire the job out to somebody in leather.
But as a reader? Wow. Unbounded joy. Thrills. The kind of excitement in a ‘bookstore’ I haven’t felt since I was a kid! I can explore all kinds of ideas from all kinds of people. Storytelling is back to being a human thing and not solely the property of the ‘special ones.’
People have already said there’s a lot of drek out there, trad/indie/vanity. But now I can sift through what somebody else is calling drek and make my own decisions. Again, wow. ‘Cause I ain’t like them folks up in them high buildings on that crowded chunk of real estate back East. And I’ll make my own decisions on what is drek, thanks so much.
I have had the opportunity with the Kindle to explore some stuff, stuff that objectively is crying out desperately for a copy-editor, stuff that would never pass the chrome-and-glass gates of the fancy publishers, stuff that may well be drek… And I’ve loved it. New ideas, new twists, new voices. Why, it’s almost like there’s 7 billion different people on this planet! And frequently I get the chance to do this 6 or 7 times for the cost of one trad mass-market.
So, those folks doing the stampy foot and insisting the only ‘true’ author is the ‘trad’ author are going to find themselves in close company with those folks who insist that the only true news is main stream news. Or, going back a bit to the homeland, those folks who said the only ‘true’ religion was Catholicism.
What? Choice?? WHOOT!
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Thanks Eamon you took the words out of my mouth. As a reader the new landscape of Indie has opened up endless realms of stories that previously would have remained untold. Without it I would never have read many authors now on my must read list some of them I’ve found through this blog and Baen’s Bar such as Pam Uphoff, Sabrina Chase, Alma Boykin, Peter Grant, Ric Locke (RIP), Evan Currie, and many others. Others I’ve found by trawling through the Kindle store and reading samples. Compared to what was available even as recently as 10 years ago its a readers paradise if you’re prepared to do a little winnowing.
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“Making the cut” sounds a lot like the fraternity/sorority system that once dominated college life.
I am confident the rest of you can work the metaphor without my doing the inside the lines coloring, but I will indulge myself by making the assertion that under this rubric Baen is the Delta Tau Chi of publishing, and I mean that in the best way possible.
I go now to do penance for making anyone envision Toni in a toga.
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ARG– it wasn’t your intent? TOGA eye worm
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That’s our Toni, the Caesar-ette of Baen.
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Ahem. A toga is a man’s garment – putting on a man’s toga was part of the ritual of a Roman being recognized as leaving boyhood and becoming a man.
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Are you under the impression the Delta Tau Chi house is comprised of Authentic Campaigners?
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Surprisingly authentic.
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Of course, they drink wine, not beer with their authentic Greek pizza.
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If your indie books go on webscriptions, I’ll cheer. It makes finding them so much easier. If not, I’ll just wait till they pop up on Smashwords, or Kobo (although their site doesn’t always work well.)
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There is an entire genre of humour based on the “what you think/what is actually happening” model, most famously the swing set series of cartoons depicting “what marketing described,” “what engineering designed,” “what installation put up” and “what the customer wanted.”
That should be applied to the publishing industry. What so many of us “imagine” publishing to be — Jimmy Stewart carefully reviewing manuscripts to select the best, working with the author to polish the prose until it gleams and check the facts so that they’re solid, then holding conferences with the art and marketing departments to determine the best possible presentation of this magnificent opus to the public — well, as Gershwin wrote: It just ain’t necessarily so.
For a variety of reasons (see: sausage-making) the public is not allowed to see snooty under-paid over-worked grad students riffling through slush piles with mounting ennui, the insane rewrite demands (add three sex scenes and make one B&D — so what if the book is about a nun’s reawakening to her faith) the pro forma packaging strategies (make her tits and his gun bigger and rip her bodice more) and the lies, bribes and kick-backs involved in getting it on shelves.
In many ways being “published” is just a less honest form of streetwalking — call it an escort or a hooker, erotica or porn, they’re selling the same service. All we’re really talking about is the quality of packaging. Squeezing it into a better constructed foundation garment and employing higher quality make-up and hair-styling doesn’t fundamentally alter the content.
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Ya know, someone should do a publishing parody of the backlash to the current 50-Shades-wanna-be’s, where an erotica writer keeps getting told to add more clothes, and take out the excess sex, and there has to be more character development, and the set-up is too unrealistic, and . . .
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“… And THIS scene, my goodness! Kindly tone down the plumbing-level dialogue, dear lady, I’m *sure* your readers do *not* wish to read such unimaginative tripe. Stilletos, micro-skirt, and a ripped bodice- in February? Surely you do not take your readers for fools, she would be frostbitten at the least! Where is the character development, the intriguing plot, the setting you can just fall into that your readers are looking for? All the sex, sex, sex embedded in the twisted sweaty sheets of this text do nothing to tell a worthwhile and meaningful story. I *do* hope your next submission is more in keeping with the stellar character our publishing house has become known for.
Sincerely,
The Editor,
Boobs, Babes, and Bangin’ Books.”
sorry, couldn’t help it. *chuckle*
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I’m at Sarah’s workshop–homework tonight was make up and research a possible publishing company name you might use for yourself, and then design a logo for it.
I am _so_ glad I finished my homework before I read this. The Logo would have been tough, getting all those Bs in the right orientation for the desired effect . . .
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Ah, the night is young, Miss Pam. Y’know how Baen has the rocket ship on the spine? Picture the chrome nekkid lady from truck mudflaps across the country- you know the one- with one arm thrown up holding a book…
I’m quite sure one could manage something imaginative with all those lovely B’s. Blame TXRed, though, she started it. I could hardly stop laughing long enough to type that up (and still do when I read it again, just now). Is it a sign of madness that you can crack yourself up that easy?
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I always thought Baen had a dragon…
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They do! It’s the rocketship/dragon, though I’ll forgive the SF-only readers for not mentioning the fiery lizard worked into the title.
Well, at least, they have a dragon in the logo. As far as in the office, I hear it has cats, but sadly no dragons.
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It’s a dragon and a spaceship!
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AND a floor wax. AND a desert toping.
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You can drink your floor wax in the Sahara, and its alcoholic? Or you can put it on top of alcohol? *chuckle*
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“Picture the chrome nekkid lady from truck mudflaps across the country- you know the one- with one arm thrown up holding a book…”
Chrome is a good choice. You know the lower classes are attracted to shiny things.
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Ooh! Shiny thing! *mesmerized*
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So, intra-office politics at this publisher would be a “tempest in a B cup”?
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Um … a double-mirror-image B, kinda like the Gucci G? With the B’s appropriately “filled out”?
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Oh please! That sounds too fun for words. :)
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Drat it, the story idea won’t let me go, and I even have a “world” where it would fit. *grumbles, sighs* And I’m in between major projects, and need to finish a different story in that world anyway . . . (Urban semi-fantasy, centered on a human-sized bat named Fledermaus Murphy “Just call me Murphy.”)
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Come to the dark side. We haz cookies. Chocolate chip. All you gotta do is write the stor-eee…
Muahahahaa!
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I love your pop-culture-soaked conversational style!
And I love that indie provides everyone with more choices — isn’t that what the leftoids are always shouting about, choice? Oh, wait … nvm.
Just last evening, I pulled up Kindle books rated 3 stars or more in SFF and started scrolling. If the cover art caught my eye, I looked closer. Important, art is. If the title caught my eye, I looked closer. I often sigh at the incompetence of headline writers at our “local” metro newspaper. If there were a number of reviews posted and the title/art didn’t turn me off, I looked closer. Probably bought 6 books last night. Yes it takes time to sift through, but the only thing I would have been doing otherwise might be playing Minecraft and watching streamed something,so … yes, what you said. :)
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Yeah, the PJmedia Indie Book Plug column causes a fairly steady drain on my fun money allowance – first I go through and pick up samples of anything that sounds eye-catching and interesting, and my next free time, I find myself hitting the end of a sample and clicking “buy this book” because I want to know what happens next.
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When I compare the cost and time involved in indie publishing as compared to traditional (academic) publishing, not going indie with my fiction is a terrible waste of resources. It takes me one year to research and write a history book, and then at least three years before a press releases it. And many presses ask that you bring a subvention or grant with the manuscript, to offset the publishing cost.
With indie, it takes as long as it takes for me to get the thing edited, covers done, and file conversions (if needed). Say, six weeks for a 92k story with professional cover and conversion. And then it’s out starting to repay my investment.
Baen? Maybe in the future, if I ever have anything over 80k words that might fit.
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I am totally confused about what to do. More or less on a self-dare, I started writing a novel eighteen months ago. I’m a full-time teacher and coach, but managed to write a few hours nearly every day (I don’t sleep much) and finished the first draft in about six months. I spent the next few months polishing and then allowed some colleagues (two English teachers and a linguist) and a former student to read it. They offered some suggestions and positive reactions. Now, I thought, I’m ready to look into publishing. Having published historical articles and book reviews over the years, I honestly thought it wouldn’t be all that complicated. Wrong. I have spent the last six months reading about the publishing industry and the issues of indie vs traditional. As a libertarian, I really like the indie idea, but know that I have zero web presence and no interest in marketing. I prefer to spend the little free time I possess writing. I’m currently about 30,000 words into a follow-up novel.
I feel like I’m writing a letter to “Dear Abby,” but I would appreciate input from those who know more about this process than I.
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R.L. my first question would be how much $$ versus time do you want to invest? If you are willing to put cash up front, hiring people to do the cover and formatting (and editing and illustrating if you want/need those too) could be worth the investment. In which case you should shop around the ‘net, look at Writer Beware to see who to avoid, and see which shops or individuals others recommend.
If you want to do it all yourself, Dreamstime has lots of art that you can buy relatively inexpensively, as does (IIRC) DeviantArt. Smashwords should probably be your next stop, at least to see what is involved and what loves/hates people have with them. [Note: I’m a novice, I do not play an expert, nor did I stay at Holiday Inn Express. YMMV, void where prohibited, see authorized retailer for details, some restrictions may apply.]
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Thanks for the response.
I have looked at Streetlight Graphics for formatting and cover designs. The reviews that I have read for their work, so far, have been positive. If I decide to go indie, I’m able to afford any of their packages. I priced the editing at Red Adept, but their top package is out of my price range for this project and I have a professional editor in the family who will do it for free. I know what people say about free labor, but since she will share in any profits, it’s more a case of deferred payment.
I’ve also considered submitting the manuscript to Red Adept and a few other small presses. At the very least, having it out of my hands would leave me free to stop wondering what to do and provide mental space to complete the second book.
I am going to start a blog. I have a large group of colleagues, friends and students to whom I forward links for various articles on a daily basis. I could do a bit of marketing there.
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Remember that small presses are not immune to Horrible Screwups in marketing, etc., nor are they immune to Bad Contracts. Research whether there are complaints on the web before you go with anyone, and read Passive Voice and KrisWrites when they wax poetic (or maybe wrathful) about contract clauses they’ve seen.
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yes, indeed.
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R. L. Reid,
If you have zero interest in marketing, traditional won’t market for you, either. in indie the best publicity is writing the next novel. Also the best way to get a traditional publisher right now is to publish indie.
YMMV and I don’t know your particular subgenre etc, mind you, but IF I were you — and braver than I would be if I really were you, because I, personally, am a wuss– I’d go indie.
On second thought, I’ve gone indie, despite being a wuss. So if your novel isn’t the Baen kind, indie is probably the best bet. Or at least it will lead to fewer ulcers.
Abby
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Thanks for the suggestions.
I think I’m in a decent situation. While I would like to make money from my writing, no one in the family will miss a meal or lose the roof over their heads if it I don’t.
Indie certainly suits my personality better than traditional (based on what I’ve read here and in other places).
I read Accordingtohoyt, Passive Voice, Mad Genius Club, Kristine Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith nearly every day. I usually read Sarah even before I open up Instapundit.
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Shhhh. Don’t tell Glenn that. He’ll never let me drive the van again!
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R.L.,
My Calmer Half was traditionally published in non-fiction prior to going indie in fiction, and did a decent effort at trying to take it trad before indie came out. So, I say with some experience that you’re going to spend a lot of time learning a lot of skills and working on other aspects no matter which way you go.
If you go trad, you will first have to devote time to learning the market, then to the skills of writing a query letter and developing pitches. Then you will have to start submitting to the publishing houses that take un-agented submissions, and probably a few *wince* agents. Then you will spend time waiting for responses, charting who’s rejected and who’s left to send out to for each story, re-writing and polishing the query letters and sample chapters, working on your pitch, etc. If you get an offer, you can either get utterly shafted, or you can spend time and money looking for a good IP lawyer in the printed book field, and learning about contract language and law such that you can understand what questions to ask and what you need to know from the IP lawyer, and then monitoring negotiations between the laywer and the agent/publisher.
None of which is in any way related to writing the next book, and which will cost a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a fair chunk for the lawyer.
If you go indie, you can either learn to do the line editing, copyediting, formatting, covers, and uploading now, or you can pay for someone else to do it now and learn later. (you’ll spend either money or time, as you choose.)
Either way, publishing house or indie, the marketing is up to you. If you don’t market the work for the trad pub, it’ll be dead in the water and sink without a trace. If you don’t market the work for indie, it may sell little to nothing at first, but it’ll be out there for years for people to find and buy – and as you write more books,, interested readers acrete and draw in friends.
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Thanks. Your observations based on experience confirm the suspicions I had developed from reading this blog and others.
The more I study the issues, the more indie feels like the route to take. I can afford to have professionals do some of the technical work of cover design and formatting. Most importantly, I can write the story/stories I want to tell.
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The theorem may have held some validity more than a decade ago, and even then it was highly subjective. With the resources available today, it’s about cutting out the middleman. And with the lack of a push, most newbie traditionally published writers are essentially just indie with a nice stamp on their cover since they’re doing most of the marketing work anyway. The biggest shock some of those I know in the author world have had has been, “Dang, I thought I’d be set if I got traditionally published.” Many publishers know this and are counting on it.
What’s more humorous is that indie is becoming like the minor leagues to the major leagues of publishers. They’re less willing to take a chance on a true newbie and scour indies for proven success that they can expand on. In other words, they’ll let someone else do the initial hard work of bringing something out and creating a buzz they can capitalize on. Sometimes they can offer the writer a better deal, and sometimes they can’t. Unlike the past, the writer now has greater options when that potential new deal is offered.
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General agreement with slight quibble that in minor leagues the major league franchise, which owns the players’ contracts, is highly focused on player development, far and above “winning” (winning is primarily important as a player development deal.)
Instead I would point to the model employed by Football and Basketball, where the colleges act as agents developing players for their own benefit and seeing them go pro as a loss.
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If I might quibble with your quibble… The college to pro analogy works better for me for the reasons you mentioned, with the exception of the fact that it’s inevitably up or out. I’m hoping indie continues to grow and success can be regularly had without signing.
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IMO, the biggest thing offered by traditional publishers is distribution, but only of paper books(ebooks need no traditional publisher to distribute). If distribution is important and the writer thinks the publisher is impressed enough to push, the deal might be worth it, but only after careful consideration about what the writer wants. Hugh Howey managed to keep his ebook rights while giving someone access to his print rights.
All in all, what it gives is more leverage. Maybe a more apt comparison than minor leagues to major leagues is the AFL vs the NFL in the 60s – the AFL started as a joke, but it eventually got respect of its own.
And I agree that traditional publishing grants no more guarantee of a good read than having McDonalds stamped on your bag guarantees a good meal. There may be more dreck in indie, but that’s b/c there’s more volume. That volume still has to be sifted through, just like with traditionally published work.
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A bit of a sidetrack here:
You may want to take a look at a service/app/browser plugin such as lastpass (https://lastpass.com) or 1password. One way to make sure that no matter which computer you’re on, all your passwords are available.
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I recently read an indie SF work that would have easily fit into Baen’s catalog – and above average at that – “Pay Me, Bug” by webcomic artist Christopher Wright.
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I enjoy Wright’s Ubersoft webcomic, and Kernel Panic is even better afaic. Unfortunately he hasn’t updated the former in three weeks, and the latter has been inert for two years.
Tradeoffs, tradeoffs…
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I am a big fan of Ubersoft but his update schedule is pretty haphazard.
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One thing I learned from my friends in the comics industry is maintaining a regular schedule is VITAL, especially in indie comics. So many go out of business before finishing a plot arc, that readers, if an issue is late, might drop the title altogether. While publishers putting out dreck on a regular schedule keep going.
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There is another SF webcomic that I want to share but its update schedule problems discourage me.
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Just read the sample, and then immediately bought it. Those first few chapters were a fun read!
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I know part of why Traditional wont touch me: I expressed my honest feelings about New York City, and Patrick Nielsen Hayden told me to “fuck off”. So I’m pretty sure I’m anathema at this point. :)
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well — I doubt it. At this point, the enemies list must be too long to remember.
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In my fantasy, Dr. Mauser is completed and I put it up on Amazon, where it does fairly well, and then Baen comes along and asks if they can take it mainstream, and I finally have an actual, glossy paperback to put in my Dad’s hands (Since he’s the one who started me off on Science fiction when I was in the single digits).
Then in increasingly unrealistic fantasies, there’s the movie deal…
And Joss Whedon directs….
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I want my books to be turned into Korean soap opera …
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Hey, when Dr. Mauser is completed, it’s not that hard to format for POD. You’re actually ahead of me – instead of having to learn to format, you’ll be coming in when a market of ready formatters has already grown up (and Joel Friedlander is selling templates, too!)
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I remember when Baen was portrayed as the enemy because they had a standard contract and encouraged people not to have (or at least didn’t require) agents. That Baen would deal directly rather than through an agent was seen as proof they were up to something.
And then the same people saying that had to start being polite in company because more and more of the participants in that particular group finally got “real” published… by Baen.
That was before ebooks and self-publishing. (Or as I heard Robert Vardeman explain the concept… “vertically integrated publishing”.)
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Yeah, once the Johns can negotiate with the girls directly instead of going through a pimp the whole system breaks down and quality goes straight to heck. Stupid Baen, don’t they realize that the procurer takes all the risk and should be rewarded accordingly?
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Well, the house is supposed to guarantee product placement, standards, contents, backing in case of conflict and legal issues, as well as guaranteed pricing in return for a percentage from the workers. That’s a proper house, as opposed to the street version that just abuses everyone and skims profits in return for not abusing more.
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I’m a reader with no desire to be a writer so I can only relate as a buyer but I’m loving indie right now. I have three go to authors right now that I will buy even when my budget really shouldn’t let me Jim Butcher, Simon R Green, and Larry Corriea. I have bought almost everything that Simon has written and everything that the other two have and I only know who the publisher of one of them is. Larry’s recomendation of Sarah’s abilities led me to her books on the kindle and the sample function led me to buy.
I sample at least 5-15 books a week because of kindle now and I base my sampling on three things in this order synopsis, cover art, and stars. Personally you could have the greatest story ever but if you didn’t take the time to make your cover appealing then I will never know. I’m 41 and not counting comics and magazines I have read over 4,000 books and almost never the same one twice. So as a book addict you gotta catch my eye or I’m moving on to my next fix quick. Which today will be the sequel to Dead Six by Larry and the second shifter book by Sarah.
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